Israel's Media Watch has written to the Israel Broadcasting Authority Executive Committee to halt all commercial distribution of the controversial 20 part series on Israel's first 50 years, entitled "Reestablishment - Tekumah".
Citing the law, IMW has pointed out that only the Executive Committee
can legally authorize such distribution. Due to the already changing nature
of the broadcasting of the series, whereby future chapters will be accompanied
by studio discussions, IMW notes that the entire series must be reviewed
for factual errors, political and ideological bias as well as professional
shortcomings before being sold to individuals and, more importantly, the
schools. IMW has demanded that a new academic team of scholars and historians
be entrusted with the task of correctly the mistakes that have occured.
March 19, 1998
Israel's First and Last (?) 50 Years - According to the Israel Broadcasting Authority
If we still had been celebrating Purim this week, I would
have opened this broadcast with a news item noting that
the IBA heads were congratulating themselves on the fact
that British Foreign Minister Cook had placed a wreath on the victims
of the Deir Yassin Massacre. They would have claimed that it was
because of how the Deir Yassin matter was treated by the prestigious "Tekuma"
series that he did what he did. In the second part of the program,
the program stated quite baldly, in contradiction with the historic facts:
"120 men, women and children were shot in cold blood at Deir Yassin".
"Tekuma" (Reestablishment), or as its known in some quarters, "Tevusa" (Defeat), is the flagship of Israel's public broadcasting network, funded from the pockets of Israel's citizens. Our pupils, for the next decade, will learn about Israel's first Jubilee from the cassettes and the adults will be purchasing the album.
In a notice about the series, this sentence is included: "not one dull moment, no single truth". I cannot deal with the dullness and inadequacy of the historical research within the confines of this broadcast. But ideological bias is quite evident. And as for not one absolute truth, I am reminded about Uri Tzvi Greenberg's poem written in 1937: "there is but one truth and not two...just like there is are no two Jerusalem."
This week's "Popolitika" program showed us Dr. Yigal Eilam, one of the five experts who advised the series. The man was uncouth, aggressive and displayed his own personal problems when he stated that "if I had my way, the series would anger many more groups". Israel's history would be told his way.
Israel's Media Watch is no censor. Nevertheless, because the law requires proper balance and variety in public broadcasting, and because the newspapers are full of criticism, both from the left and the right, that the series is exclusive, manipulative of the truth and highlights the personal preferences of the extreme left-wing, we call upon the IBA heads to halt the commercial distribution of the cassettes and the album planned to be produced. The series must be reviewed by an expanded panel of advisors and historians. If errors are claimed, they should be discussed. "Tekuma" is but one version of Israel's history. It should not be the only one.For example, in the section dealing with 1967-73, we are shown one female settler of Hebron and then come Leah Tsemel, anti-Zionist defender of Arab terrorists; Meron Benvenisti, of Meretz; Shmuel Shem-Tov, of Mapam and the infamous "High Schoolers Letter"; and finally Dudik, a former elite army officer who now supports the Arab position. Is this correct perspective? Is this balance? Is this true history?
And I also know of other potential interviewers, considered to be middle-of-the-road, who were invited to participate but when it was discovered that they did not toe the leftist line of the series, they were rejected.
Israel's media consumers have the right to protect themselves and
not just by switching channels. IBA heads exploited a public media instrument
to further their own political and ideological goals and not just in the
name of "freedom of expression". They received over 4 million NIS
as a budget and there is an English-language version to be distributed
abroad. We consumers expect that the public representatives on the executive
of the IBA will protect us according to the law and their public responsibility.
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