Washington Report, September 5, 1983, Page 4

Lobby Activities

For Arabs:

Seeking to reinforce the position of Arab Americans as an ethnic and political force in American politics, some 1,200 members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) played a visible role in the recent march in Washington marking the 20th anniversary of the historic 1963 march of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

During the festivities the Arab American participants gave prominent display to three large green and yellow banners measuring 18 feet across which read: "Arab-Americans Marching For Jobs, Peace & Freedom." ADC members, some of whom arrived by bus from Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Richmond and other cities, held the banners throughout the afternoon at their site near the Lincoln Memorial—placing one behind the other about 75 feet apart and staggering them so that all three could be viewed from the front at the same time.

Among the dozens of speakers was former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk, the chairman of ADC, which was also one of the march's convening groups. In his brief remarks he asked the 250,000 or more persons in attendance to "resolve today to oppose militarism, to oppose military occupation, to oppose apartheid and racism."

Some Jewish American groups refused to participate in the event, in part because of ADC's involvement and the placing on the agenda of foreign policy issues such as the Middle East. The initial policy statement issued last January by the organizers decried "the militarization of internal conflicts, often abetted and even encouraged by massive U.S. arms exports, in areas of the world such as the Middle East and Central America..." Among the Jewish groups which objected to this statement was the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, which said through a spokesman that such language "appears to be a challenge to American support for Israel's defense needs." The ADL spokesman added that "we also have problems with some of the convenors, specifically Senator Abourezk." Some of the displeased Jewish groups which refused last spring to participate in the event were said to be active behind the scenes later in trying to tone down any unflattering statements on U.S. Middle East policy, according to the coordinator of the march, Donna Brazile.

Still other Jewish groups, including the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the American Jewish Congress, agreed to endorse the march only after they were given written assurances from the march chairmen, Coretta Scott King and District of Columbia Delegate Walter Fauntroy, that a position paper would contain no criticism of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Also, they were promised that any anti-Israel remarks made by a speaker would be publicly disavowed, and that parade marshals would be instructed to screen placards and banners to make sure they conformed to the theme of "jobs, peace and freedom."

For Israel:

Two pro-Israel groups are continuing to wage a tireless campaign to convince Americans that the television news reports they watched of Israel's war in Lebanon in the summer of 1982—coverage which took place more than one year ago—were biased against Israel.

This is the theme of a 29-page booklet—published by the Center For International Security (CIS)—which was recently sent to journalists in Washington by the Embassy of Israel. Written by Frank Gervasi, a writer who is a member of the advisory board of the Washington-based CIS, the booklet criticizes all media coverage of the war, but alleges that the "chief offender" against balanced coverage was television. "Media in general, but television in particular, tended to depict the Israelis as brutal invaders bent less upon victory over their longtime PLO tormentors than on the extermination of Palestinian Arabs as a people..." He concludes that "friendship for the PLO (on the part of television journalists) and rage against Israel prompted much of the lopsided television coverage.

Another group, which calls itself Americans For A Safe Israel, has been disseminating an hour-long film which attempts to document what it says was NBC Television's distorted coverage of the war. Called "NBC in Lebanon: A Study in Media Misrepresentation," the film—written and directed by AFSI director Peter Goldman—claims that NBC's coverage was "deliberately" unfavorable to Israel at the same time it "glorified the PLO." A shouting match took place between an NBC official and the chairman of the AFSI when the film was shown at the American Cultural-Center in Jerusalem in early August. The dispute was touched off when Paul Miller, NBC's bureau chief in Tel Aviv, angrily told the audience that the film was "propaganda" and "99 percent falsehoods." He later presented a formal rebuttal to the film to an audience of about 50 Israeli government officials, journalists and others who had attended or read about the film showing.