Context Elusive in PBS's "Elusive Peace"

CAMERA ^ | 10/12/05

[abu afak]

PBS aired a slanted 2 1/2 hour documentary this week about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict entitled "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs". In most areas, it will be broadcast repeatedly. (See schedule for details.)

Below is a preliminary analysis of the documentary. Check back for a longer critique.

On the surface, the documentary appears to be balanced, because there are scenes and interviews with both Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Americans. However, the interviews and scenes with the Israelis focused heavily (if not entirely) on negative aspects, while the Palestinians were shown in largely sympathetic scenes, with their arguments left intact.

The Palestinians are often portrayed as weak and struggling for peace, constantly working on ceasefires, while the Israelis appear mainly as scheming bunglers, who, while they may also want peace, always seem to do the wrong thing that provokes the Palestinians predictably to perpetrate terror attacks. Targeted strikes against Palestinian terror leaders are repeatedly portrayed as the event that destroyed a working ceasefire, when in reality, the terror attacks had never completely stopped. Several times, the death tallies from both sides are presented in a way that morally equates Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians with Israeli military strikes against terrorists and combatants.

Palestinian terminology is used throughout the film by the narrator. Terrorists are "activists"; the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is described as "Palestinian land" rather than "disputed land."

When the film shifts its attention to the Camp David talks in the summer of 2000, emphasis is given to President Clinton reminiscing about his impatience with Israeli Prime Minister Barak, including over his allegedly not being more forthcoming with concessions. Jerusalem is a particular focus. Since in the end, Barak was very forthcoming and made an unprecedented offer that included Palestinian sovereignty over much of eastern Jerusalem, and even over the surface of the Temple Mount, it was odd that no time was spent on Clinton recalling anger at Arafat's rejection of the offer (well known from media accounts). Clinton's comments on this topic were either not requested by the interviewer or were left on the editing room floor.

Indicative of the skewing of the entire account of the Camp David/Taba negotiations is the program's heavy reliance on Robert Malley, who has been a vocal advocate of the line that Arafat did not bear responsibility for the collapse of the talks and the failure to reach an "end of conflict" despite the vast concessions offered by Barak. Tellingly omitted from the lineup of commentators was Ambassador Dennis Ross, the chief U.S. negotiator during the talks, who wrote in a September 2001 letter to the New York Review of Books in response to Malley's revisionist account of events:

""Both Barak and Clinton were prepared to do what was necessary to reach agreement. Both were up to the challenge. Neither shied away from the risks inherent in confronting history and mythology. Can one say the same about Arafat? Unfortunately, not—and his behavior at Camp David and afterward cannot be explained only by his suspicions that a trap was being set for him...""

EXCERPT

The Rest at Link above

[traviskicks]

Top Ten Reasons to Privatise Public Broadcasting:
http://catoinstitute.com/pub_display.php?pub_id=4002

[Lemondropkid31]

Pallywood
Pallywood, "According to Palestinian Sources..." a film by Richard Landes. International news media extract a few convincing instants of staged scenes - sight-bytes, and present them as news...

http://seconddraft.org/movies.php

[blackie]

PDB is a tool of the lunatic left!

[Semper Paratus]

The reason for Clinton's anger was that Arafat's intransigence cost the bent one the Nobel Prize.

[abu afak]

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