Correspondent
“Israel’s Secret Weapon,” by Olenka
Frenkiel
BBC World
On Saturday,
June 28 and Sunday, June 29, cable and DirecTV viewers in
Panama
and much of the rest of the world were able to see
“Israel’s Secret Weapon,” which had been shown
on
BBC television in the United Kingdom last March and finally
made
it to the global BBC World audience. This is the tale of
Israel’s weapons of mass destruction, a story I’ve
rarely seen covered on American networks, and never so well as
in this episode of “Correspondent.”
Israel has had
nuclear weapons for decades, and one Israeli, Mordechai Vanunu,
is nearing the end of a long prison sentence for having exposed
his country’s atom bomb production in the British press.
Much of this program is about an American couple who have in a
way “adopted” Vanunu, whose own family had disowned
him as a traitor to Israel. Former Israeli Prime Minister and
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who appeared on the program,
ducked all the questions on Israel’s weapons but was
forthrightly indignant about Vanunu, whom he insists belongs
behind bars.
It’s an
update of an old story, with new bits about chemical and
biological capabilities, good analysis of the diplomatic
gamesmanship involved with Israel’s arsenal and a brief
reference to an amazing exchange with the US government, which
insisted as the Iraq War approached that the only questions
about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East about
which
it would talk were Saddam’s. As to the nuclear arms, this
documentary breaks new ground about health problems suffered by
workers in Israel’s atomic weapons program. On the
chemical
warfare side of the story, the program accuses Israel of using
an undisclosed convulsion-causing gas against Palestinian
protesters in Gaza.
So why did
this
air on BBC but not CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC or NBC?
The corporate
mainstream media in the United States, like the political
leaders, lean toward Israel with only a few exceptions. I
don’t buy into any conspiracy theories about this, Jewish
or otherwise. Israel has many friends and runs an excellent
public relations operation, but mostly the American media are
controlled by Gentiles and many of Israel’s strongest
critics are Jewish. If you want to go connecting dots to
explain
editorial slants --- often an overly simplistic proposition ---
look at which media companies are subsidiaries of or
interlocking directorates with companies that supply war
materiel to Israel before you start asking about people's
religion or ethnicity.
Most of the
major US media also have legacies of Cold War blacklisting and
self-censorship, and moreover, under American laws and customs
editors, publishers and program directors wield greater powers
of censorship than is the case in some other press cultures.
You’re might get to express your opinion on CNN, if you
fit
within a certain narrow range of the political spectrum and
have
sufficient celebrity status, but otherwise there’s a soap
box and a public park and the Supreme Court says that’s
your freedom of expression. The limiting factor is money, and
it
seems that Americans are less likely than, say, Canadians or
Britons, to object to control of their government and
communications media by the wealthy. The Middle East is far
from
the only subject that the US corporate media tend to slant,
either by commission or omission.The main lesson this
journalist
takes from the situation is that if you want to be well
informed
listen to the activists in the parks as well as the suits on TV
and vary your reading material beyond the mainstream products
of
a single country.
BBC has its
prejudices and taboos, too. I’ve been a BBC shortwave
radio
and later BBC World TV news fan since I was a kid, and for many
years The Beeb’s coverage of Northern Ireland often
reminded me of American TV reporting on Vietnam, circa 1966 ---
or for that matter, of the way Fox covers the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq today. But generally, BBC’s news
division is professional and evenhanded. They’re the most
trusted major news operation in the English-speaking world, a
reputation that they have earned.
And they added
to their fame with “Israel’s Secret Weapon.”
Ms.
Frenkiel’s documentary ought to be nominated for various
awards, but so far its showing to a world audience has just
prompted Israel to take Mugabe-style punitive measures against
the BBC. Members of the Sharon government will no longer talk
to the BBC, and the Israeli government won’t be issuing
the
British network’s journalists with credentials and
permits.
Sharon’s
reprisals may annoy the BBC and they may intimidate the more
docile media and journalists into spouting his
government’s
line of thought and nothing else. But those kinds of
“supporters” are already submissive and the measures
sure won’t do much to relieve Israel’s growing
international isolation. The word is out, it has been out for a
long time, and killing one of the messengers won’t put the
story under wraps again.
Also in this
section:
Cool Internet sites
Philharmonic Youth
Orchestra
of the New England Conservatory
The Directory of Important
Bird Areas in Panama
BBC's "Israel's
Secret Weapon"
