Jewish Reaction to "God's Warriors" Documentaries.

Thanks to Jason and Furgaia for telling me about the following article, ‘CNN Comes Under Unprecedented Attack’, by Nathan Guttman, published on September 05 in the ‘Jewish Daily Forward’, which relates to my previous post. In reading this, anyone who has not seen ‘God’s Warriors’ should be aware that almost all statements in the documentaries are directly from interviews with Israelis and other individuals who are the subject of the documentaries. The awful things revealed about Jewish “settlers” and other Israelis comes from their own mouths.

‘Washington - A CNN documentary about religious extremists has prompted an unprecedented outcry from the organized Jewish community, including a call to advertisers to pressure the network.

The three-episode special, “God’s Warriors,” by CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christiana Amanpour, is being characterized by Jewish groups as equating Jewish extremists in West Bank settlements with Muslim jihadists. The program is also accused of containing numerous factual errors.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents more than 50 national Jewish organizations, convened a special discussion with its members following the airing of the program last month, and has urged them to take up the issue with companies that have bought advertising slots during the show.
In the past, there have been widespread complaints about the media’s treatment of Israel, but this appears to be the first time that so many organizations have come together in opposition to a single media outlet.

“This was not an average show,” said Jennifer Laszlo-Mizrahi, founder of The Israel Project. “CNN bought full-page ads promoting the show and ran it on prime time. The perspective the show left the viewers with is that Israel doesn’t want peace and that Israel’s friends in the United States don’t want peace.” The Israel Project, a group focused on providing information to the press and the public about Israel, broke a five-year tradition of not reacting to media reports on Israel and put out a press release about the Amanpour show, detailing Israel’s efforts to promote peace in the region.
“The program definitely has a great damage potential because of the people who watch CNN,” Laszlo-Mizrahi added, pointing to the fact that foreign officials and decision makers tend to view CNN as an important news source.

Relations between Jewish organizations and American media outlets were rocky during the first years of the intifada when Jewish activists protested outside almost every major media outlet and threatened to embark on reader boycotts. As violence on the ground died down, though, so did the tensions over media coverage. Now, “God’s Warriors” has the potential of drawing the Jewish community into the media debate once again.

The vigorous response appears to be due, at least in part, to the coincidence of the program’s screening just before the release of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” a book by scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. The book levies serious charges against the power of the Jewish lobby which, it states, influences the United States to choose a foreign policy in favor of Israel against its own interest.

In the CNN program, among those interviewed are Mearsheimer and former president Jimmy Carter, who has been controversial in the Jewish community since the publication of his book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

In a letter to CNN’s vice president, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Abraham Foxman, wrote: “The program made a huge and unfounded leap from legitimate pro-Israel advocacy in the U.S. to nefarious support for Jewish extremists.”

The first episode of Amanpour’s trilogy, titled “God’s Jewish Warriors,” dealt mainly with extreme Jewish settlers in the West Bank who vow never to leave the land because of biblical traditions and religious beliefs.

Amanpour interviews a member of the former Jewish underground who not only planted bombs in cars of Palestinian mayors [and in Palestinian schools] but also plotted to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount. In addition, the show deals extensively with the relations between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the territories, and with the support for settler groups from Jewish and Christian groups in America.

Critics of the show point to a series of inaccuracies and claim that little was done to maintain a balance in choosing interviewees. But the main issue for media watchers is the equation that the series appears to make among extremists in all three major monotheistic religions. [Fleming's comment: Despite allegations of "factual inaccuracies", not one objector has identified one erroneous factual statement.]

“The whole setup from the start is false,” said Andrea Levin, executive director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America — a media watchdog group that follows coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict in American media outlets.

A CNN representative would not remark on the complaints of Jewish groups. The representative said that the network will respond directly to media-monitoring organization Camera and other groups that voiced concerns about the program.

The strongest reaction so far came from the Presidents Conference. An e-mail sent by its chair, June Walker, and Malcolm Hoenlein, its executive vice president, details steps taken by the Jewish community since the program aired. Conference members have asked CNN to avoid rerunning the show before concerns about factual errors and bias are addressed and corrected. It is also requesting that the network invest similar resources to produce a new program that would “rectify the bias and inappropriate context.”
“We are aware of some advertisers that have already distanced themselves from ‘God’s Jewish Warriors,’” the e-mail reads. “It was recommended that all advertisers be contacted to express concern at their association with this offensive program.”’


Footnote:

CNN arranged for people to question Christiana Amanpour online , and most of the queries were quite sympathetic to her documentary, but the first question in the list shows a mentality so thoroughly conditioned by the Israel Lobby and the American media generally that it can be called only ignorant, stupid, or both:

'Jack Wilson of Cannes, France: How can you even begin to compare Islamic extremists with Christians or Jews? How can you even put them in the same sentence?'

'Amanpour: We're not comparing. We're showing that each faith has their committed and fervent believers, and we're showing how each of those are active in the political sphere in today's world.'

More Truth from the Glowing Screen -- and a Violent Reaction

Recently CNN showed reporter Christiana Amanpour’s three part documentary, “God’s Warrior’s,” whose general theme is that: ‘during the last 30 years, each faith [Jewish, Muslim, and Christian] has exploded into a powerful political force, comprised of followers – “God’s warriors” – who share a deep dissatisfaction with modern society, and a fierce determination to place God and religion back into daily life and to the seats of power. Their political and cultural struggles to save the world from what they view as secular materialism, greed and sexual corruption have caused anger, division and fear.’



The first hour was about Jews – in particular Zionists and the “settlers” on Palestinian land, the second about Muslims, and the third (which I haven’t watched yet) about Christians. I was amazed at the facts which Ms. Amanpour and CNN managed to get away with presenting on American television, particularly where the lies and subterfuge and usually unreported terrorism of the militant settlers are concerned, although I felt she was too easy on the Zionists and too hard on the Muslims out of deference for America’s silent censorship.

It’s obvious that influential Jews did not feel as I did, because lo and behold, the prime time MSNBC program, “MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams” has just devoted an entire hour – or what seemed like the entire hour – to Abrams’ harsh attack on Ms. Amanpour. Are you surprised to learn that his objection wasn’t that she had been too hard on the Muslims or too easy on the Jews, or that she had insulted Christians, but that she had outrageously favored the Muslims and smeared the Zionists?

Dan Abrams -- who last summer became General Manager of MSNBC, replacing former MSNBC president Rick Kaplan -- literally spewed spittle in his indignant enthusiasm as he denounced Ms. Amanpour because she had presented Israelis as less than perfect and Muslims (particularly the Palestnians) as less than embodiments of evil. How could anyone dare to besmirch the reputation of the virtuous and victimized Israelis by comparing them in any way with the Arab terrorists?

The pro-Zionist machinery does not take much time or provocation to get the buzzsaws spinning, and outside of some Fox News propaganda, I have never seen a television program so overtly dedicated to downplaying truths which had been told on another program.

I should add for those who haven’t seen “God’s Warriors” that its message is conveyed almost primarily by interviews with Jews, Arabs, and Christians, along with some video footage of events, and not by commentary by Christiana Amanpour.