‘Incredible’ Pressure From Right, Left : Hate Mail Pelts Israel TV for West Bank Coverage

JERUSALEM — Chaim Yavin, the man in charge of television for the state-owned Israel Broadcasting Authority, reached for the powder-blue folder on his desk, flipped through the hate mail inside and observed that “recent events have put us in a very, very tough spot.”

“The pressure put on us, not by the politicians but by the public at large, is just incredible,” Yavin said.

He was talking about Israel Television’s coverage of the Palestinian unrest in the occupied territories, coverage that has been as controversial as that of the Western networks, although for different reasons.

To its leftist critics, Israel Television has failed in its role as a guardian of democracy, offering such a sanitized version of events that viewers are not well enough informed to make intelligent political judgments.

To the political right, Israel Television is not just biased or sensational--the same charges are leveled at Western media coverage--but unpatriotic, even treasonous.

As a state monopoly, Yavin said, Israel Television has a national role different from that of the American commercial networks. He believes that it will be “a catalyst to solve the conflict in the long run.” However, he said with a trace of resignation in his voice, “in the short run, it polarizes public opinion in Israel.”

The controversy surrounding Yavin and his 500 full-time associates at Israel Television goes beyond their coverage of the news. One of the biggest recent uproars about their work involved a satirical skit that was censored out of an entertainment program.

The skit depicts an Israeli family watching the “Dynasty” series on television as their living room is engulfed by flames from outside.

“It will go away in a few minutes,” says Israel’s most popular comic, Tuvia Tsafir, who plays the father in the skit. As the flames get closer, he sends his soldier son out to beat at them with a club while he continues watching Israel’s favorite soap opera.

“I know that most of the public in the country would prefer not to see anything at all,” satirist Efraim Sidon, who wrote the script, said in an interview. “That’s why I had the characters watch ‘Dynasty.’ ”

Sidon said--and sources at Israel Television confirmed--that the house-burning skit was approved by lower-level management but killed by Uri Porat, the political appointee who heads the Israel Broadcast Authority.

‘Macabre Propaganda’

Porat refused to be interviewed for this article, but he was quoted in the Jerusalem Post last month as describing the skit as “macabre propaganda based on false premises. . . . There is no place for this kind of satire on state-owned television.”

Cultural censorship is a volatile issue, but Israel Television’s news coverage has raised even more sensitive questions about the role of media in a democracy.

“As a citizen, I’m not getting all the information,” satirist Sidon complained. “We here don’t get what they get in other countries in the world.”

The Jerusalem Post’s television critic, Philip Gillon, accused Porat in print this week of “conducting a one-man operation to deny us our basic right to know via television what is going on.”

‘Popular Ignorance’

Another commentary, which also appeared in the Post, suggested that “the level of popular support for the ‘iron fist’ (army policy in the occupied territories) was partly a result of popular ignorance of how it looked.”

A reviewer for the Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Aharonot described Israel Television’s coverage of the unrest as “vegetarian, sterile.” The independent newspaper Haaretz has referred to the station’s main evening news program as “the daily edition of ‘Happy Days’ in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

From the other side, the newspaper of the rightist National Religious Party, Hatzofeh, criticized what it called tendentious reports broadcast by an unidentified Israel Television correspondent. It accused him of slanting his coverage in collusion with a legislator from the leftist Citizens’ Rights Movement.

Unlike previous suspicions of a left-wing takeover of the state media, the newspaper editorialized, “this time there is authentic proof that leaves no room for doubt.”

Denies Any Cover-Up

Yavin, who is a professional newsman, conceded that Israel Television covers the story of the uprising in a way that is different from that of the Western commercial networks, but he rejected charges of a cover-up. He said that in its Hebrew-language broadcasts, at least, it is doing as thorough a job as technical and national constraints permit.

“If you want to watch real ‘Zionist’ television, watch the program in Arabic,” he said, referring to the admittedly “more propagandistic” role of Israel Television’s Arabic-language service.

“I think that in all this ugly war, it all starts with your basic political standpoint. If you have an affinity with the Palestinians, then you’ll go there and shoot there and show the whole thing from their side. We are an Israeli Broadcasting Authority.”

All Material Gets Used

Nonetheless, he went on, “we haven’t thrown into the basket one foot of material our crews brought back from the territories.” Since the trouble flared last Dec. 9, he estimated, the station has devoted 75% of its news coverage to the unrest. Six of 10 stories on its news show the day of the interview dealt with the unrest.

The most notable news event seen on Israel Television recently was excerpts of videotape footage shot Feb. 25 by a CBS-TV crew showing four Israeli soldiers beating and kicking two handcuffed Palestinian prisoners, using fists, boots, clubs and stones.

Maj. Gen. Amram Mitzna, military commander of the West Bank, required his senior officers to watch all 40 minutes of the footage--60 seconds of which had been shown on American television--and vowed that the army would not become “a mob force.” Mitzna said the four soldiers had been arrested and their commander suspended.

The principal difference between Israel Television’s coverage and that of the American networks is that it shows much more in the way of interviews, analysis and government announcements. Its filmed reports are just as likely to show quiet West Bank streets as clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

Yavin noted that even after stepping up its coverage of the territories, it still has only three crews regularly assigned there. The American networks typically have anywhere from five to eight each.

Israeli Reporters Get Break

An army spokeswoman, Maj. Ofra Preuss, confirmed that the military gives preference in granting special requests to Israel Television and state radio. Their reporters are often given early warning about an army operation, even invited to go along.

“I want to speak first of all to Israel,” Preuss said. The army is a national institution, she said, and “everybody belongs to it.”

Yavin said, “We can’t compare ourselves to the professionalism of the American networks--technically and maybe also in the way of writing, to some degree.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean, he added, that the U.S. viewer gets a clearer understanding of what’s going on than the Israeli viewer.

With their greater resources, he said, the American networks have access to “all the action,” which they then compress into a few seconds of air time. This both “sharpens the picture and distorts it,” he said. “They dramatize the picture beyond what I would say is a true report of what is happening.”

Israel Television reporters file daily reports from the West Bank and Gaza even if they have witnessed nothing dramatic that day. “Sometimes you see an empty street in Nablus,” Yavin said740303394particular day.”

On a Different ‘Rhythm’

Israel Television also operates on a different “rhythm” than the American networks, Yavin said, and added that “our stories are longer, the pace slower.”

Israel Television’s main evening newscast, which is such a national institution that it is considered ill-mannered to telephone an Israeli during the broadcast, is scheduled to last for half an hour. But unlike American news programs, there are no commercial breaks. And if there is more news than can be accommodated in half an hour, “we’ll broaden this to 35 or 40 minutes, or sometimes to an hour,” Yavin said.

As for the criticism from both sides, the Israel Television official is philosophical.

“You really think you are serving the cause of an open, liberal, democratic way of looking at things,” he said. “But people don’t always want to see what’s happening. They want to see what’s happening in other countries, but not when the emotional involvement is so strong.”