PBS Investigation Refutes Bias Charges by Pro-Likud Group

By Eugene Bird

"Not fundamentally flawed." That was the verdict after a one-year investigation initiated by Boston station WGBH of charges that a film it had aired about Israeli land policy, "Journey to the Occupied Lands," was prejudiced. The investigation resulted in three minor changes in the narration of the film, and praise for the producer, Michael Ambrosino, by Public Broadcasting System president Ervin Guggan. The cost of the review carried out by former station ombudsman and former "Frontline" executive editor Louis Wiley was high, but "Journey to the Occupied Lands" will continue to be offered with only minor changes in the narration.

Despite this clear victory, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), which initiated the complaint against the film, is continuing its criticism of public broadcasting and seeking to prejudice public television's partial federal funding by testifying on Capitol Hill and claiming that Ambrosino should have been reined in by WGBH because he used an "activist" Israeli researcher, Marty Rosenbluth.

CAMERA's charges against Ambrosino originally were contained in a 30-page memorandum written by CAMERA's "researcher," a professor at Harvard named Alec Safian. In response to an answer prepared by producer Ambrosino, Safian wrote another 30-page memorandum of charges backed up by 50 pages of documents. The subsequent almost two-year-long investigation of these charges involved sending researchers to Jerusalem, and cost tens of thousands of dollars in order to answer almost totally specious accusations and seemingly never-ending efforts by Safian to substantiate the basic charge that the film was "fundamentally flawed."

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has made it clear, however, that the WGBH case has caused a careful review of all programming, with particular regard to fact-checking, and has issued a 1994 report on "objectivity." That is another way of saying that in the current anti-Public Broadcasting atmosphere in Washington, DC, CPB and the Public Broadcasting Service are being extra careful.

Could another program like "Journey" be funded today? The question must remain unanswered until another Michael Ambrosino and Marty Rosenbluth are found to test whether any media organization would dare to try. Updating of the film and showing it again on WGBH and across the country would be one indication, however, that CPB and its 350 station affiliates still are independent and objective on this crucial issue of media freedom.

"CAMERA's mission is to prevent programs like 'Journey to the Occupied Lands' from being made."

CAMERA activists also will continue to probe the success of their efforts to stifle discussion of Middle East events. These activists usually appear at any Palestinian or Council for the National Interest (CNI) event with provocative questions and outlandish claims about what is being said. CAMERA also spends thousands of dollars for advertisements in various national and local publications, touting the Likud-inspired hard-line Israeli position and attacking whenever it can any statement critical of Israel. CAMERA activists have appointed themselves as a damage control unit aboard a very leaky ship.

Although they forced the premier public television station in the nation and its number-one program series, "Frontline," to make minor changes in a report on Israeli seizure of Arab lands in the occupied territories, they did not succeed in having "Journey to the Occupied Lands" removed from circulation.

Almost 1,000 already-distributed copies of the hour-long program, perhaps the most comprehensive review of Israeli land policies ever filmed, may be revised slightly as a result of the review. Three small changes were ordered by Wiley, a 20-year veteran journalist. First, the film narration had reported that no exports were permitted from Gaza during the Israeli occupation. This will be changed to note that "some" oranges were exported from Gaza (only after great pressure from the United States and the European Economic Community, particularly the latter). Second, a satellite photo was not tagged as being a composite instead of a single photo; and third, an interpretation of the results of one among dozens of legal proceedings in a specific dispute over land was modified. The three charges were judged by the station to be "minor" in the hour-long documentary that featured remarkable footage in which Israeli officials described exactly how they legally seize Arab land. However, the appropriate references will be re-recorded in the narration and copies of the film will be replaced by WGBH if purchasers write in and ask for the amended version.

In its review decision, WGBH also strongly criticized CAMERA and its personal bias charges against Ambrosino. "CAMERA does itself a disservice when it departs from factual findings and enters the realm of speculation about Ambrosino's motive and intent," the report stated.

Said Ambrosino of CAMERA: "I don't think their mission is to correct errors. It's to prevent programs like 'Journey to the Occupied Lands' from being made."

Reaction to the decision by CAMERA supporters began with criticism of the report by conservative columnist Alec Beam, son of former U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw and Moscow Jacob Beam, in the Boston Globe in early June. WGBH production executive Peter McGhee, who had initiated the review last summer, told writer Karen Everhart that he knew CAMERA might seize upon investigator Wiley's previous role at "Frontline" to continue its complaints, but his own interest was not in "public" relations, but to "form an independent opinion for ourselves and then live by that opinion...CAMERA will, in a determined way, distort for their own purposes what we say...We have at least said to ourselves what is correct and acted on it, and CAMERA can exercise its First Amendment rights forever."

"Frontline" plans to air the ombudsman's report and advertise the availability of modified tapes. Anyone wanting to purchase the tape should call 1 (800) 344-3337. Cost is $39.95. It is well worth the money.

If You Think Peace Is Stalled, It's Only Because You Lack "Perspective"

Dennis Ross and the peace process are like eternal Washington Siamese twins. They are never going to be separated from each other and, since the departure for Tel Aviv of former White House Middle East adviser Martin Indyk as U.S. ambassador to Israel, Ross pretty much has the field to himself. He is making good use of his cat-bird seat to guide the process in ways never contemplated by Secretary of State James Baker III when they began the process in Madrid.

Ross, who served as State Department director of policy planning during the administration of former President George Bush, was held over by Clinton administration Secretary of State Warren Christopher and raised to ambassadorial status. If that was in hope that Middle East shuttle trips, the most time-consuming chore of every secretary of state since Henry Kissinger, could be allocated to an ambassador, it didn't work. Secretary Christopher has just returned from his 13th visit to the Middle East during the two and a half years since President Bill Clinton took the oath of office. During those 13 trips Christopher has spent 45 days in Jerusalem, plus uncounted days in other Arab capitals, making the relationship with Israel the most time-consuming problem on the Christopher agenda.

Ambassador Ross, a former fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a spinoff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's principal Washington, DC lobby, soon will mark his 10th year working the Middle East on behalf of peace and, many might say, on behalf of Israel as well. If it seems unfair to charge Ross with being primarily committed to Israeli interests in seeking elusive peace agreements between Israel and Syria and Israel and the Palestinians, certainly the U.S. attitude of hands-off-substance and leave-it-up-to-the-parties is an Israeli invention, and a Ross trademark.

Eternally inventive himself, Ambassador Ross is able to modify his briefings on the quest for the Holy Grail of Middle East Peace to suit his audiences...and gauge the current atmosphere of either pessimism or optimism. His latest on-the-record briefing came only hours after his June 13 return from a long shuttle to the main capitals of the Levant, not including Beirut, and he showed his fatigue at an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, chaired by Judith Kipper. But he did not let exhaustion cause him to lose his way in his latest message: Even if there is no peace, the "peace process" is alive and well if one puts it into "perspective."

This term seems to have replaced "context" in the Ross vocabulary to explain away the ever-longer downs in the up-and-down process. The recent low point was a long one but it was predictable, Ross said, and things had improved recently. One had to have "perspective" on it and see how far we had come in getting the two sides to talk with each other.

Ross was fascinatingly general, never dealing with the key issues of Jewish West Bank settlements, sharing Jerusalem, the 2-to-1 ratio of killings of Palestinians and Israelis, and the closures of Israel and of Jerusalem to Palestinians. Instead, he dealt with the promise of the future. "Peace without an economic content is no peace at all," he said at one point and mentioned the upcoming second Economic Summit in Amman in mid-October as promising new impetus to the peace for all parties who might attend.

A U.S. ambassador said, off the record, "Ross is the reason why the Palestinians are blocked from having a normal state-to-state relationship. They still come in the back door."

Ross also repeated the mantras of the Department of State on the Palestinian state and aid to Israel and Egypt (the Camp David open-ended contract), an end to which, in his opinion, cannot even be discussed now or at any time in the near future. The possibility of dividing up the current $5 billion-plus in direct cash aid to Israel and Egypt among the further parties to the peace, as the Germans have now decided to do, brought no positive response from Ross, who admitted that the administration does not know where to find the additional aid needed for the Palestinians and others, except from increased private investment.

Is there a "drop-dead" date in the current Syrian or Palestinian negotiations, beyond which the looming elections might prevent a positive "perspective"? "No, not really," according to Ross.

This almost laid-back attitude was coupled with incongruous urgings that the parties must not lose momentum. Perhaps that is the trouble with a decade of involvement: Nothing surprises and nothing, absolutely nothing, would make Ross (and by implication the United States) lose its cool. In the end, no matter how long it takes, he indicated, the parties will make a peace that is as satisfying as it can be, because the United States did not interfere on behalf of principles and morality.

Eugene Bird, a retired foreign service officer, is president of the Council for the National Interest in Washington, DC and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.