PBS' Bill Moyers Maligns Pro-Israel Groups 

by Lee Green

In Brief

The November 30, 2007, Bill Moyers Journal on PBS focused on the impact of two pro-Israel lobbying groups, CUFI (Christians United for Israel) and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), on the peace process and American foreign policy.  In the first half of the show, Moyers showed clips from various CUFI meetings and added his own voiceovers.  In the second half of the show, in an entirely one-sided discussion, CUFI and AIPAC are characterized contemptuously by Moyers and his two guests as obstacles to peace and worse.  Why did he not invite someone from CUFI or AIPAC to join the discussion, to have a true give and take?  While technically, he gave both "sides" a similar amount of time in his program, he segregated the sides in a way that did not allow CUFI or AIPAC to defend themselves from Moyers' and his guests' inflammatory accusations against them.  Moyers abdicated his role as a fair host, making no effort to remain objective.  Instead, he clearly sided against CUFI and AIPAC in the most scathing terms.

To read the entire transcript of the show, click here.

As often noted, public networks receive public funding from CPB under a Federal Statute that calls for "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature." 
 

In Detail

The first half of the November 30, 2007 Bill Moyers Journal program, "Lobbies' Role in Middle East Peace," looked at reactions to Annapolis and examined the ideas of CUFI and its leaders, such as Pastor John Hagee, and supporters, and included clips from several CUFI meetings.  Moyers added his own voiceover comments in this segment. 

* In the introduction, Moyers appeared to equate radical Muslims who support terror and want to destroy Israel, with Jews and Christians who oppose making land concessions to the Palestinians.  And he also describes the security fence and Jewish communities in the West Bank in a highly prejudicial way.  

 

BILL MOYERS: But Israel has already carved up the West Bank with settlements and with a wall that snakes through the territory, cutting Palestinian neighborhoods off from one another. 

In Gaza at least 100,000 Palestinians protested the Annapolis meeting. The demonstrations were organized by Hamas, Israel's most hostile adversary, who was not invited to Annapolis. One of its leaders put his fellow Palestinian, Abbas, on notice: "No compromise with israel." Another insisted: "We will not give up one grain of the land of Palestine, and we will never recognize Israel." 

Just miles away in Jerusalem, thousands of Israelis gathered near the ancient western wall and prayed for God to make sure the Annapolis meeting failed. 

...several rabbis issued a statement saying, "There is a strict religious ban on giving parts of the land of Israel to foreigners, especially to the Palestinians who are enemies and hate us." 

So once again it is the extremists who insist on the last word in The Middle East, invoking God as they do. Israel has its religious die-hards, the Palestinians have theirs, and here in the United States, we have them, too. 

* Opposition to the recent talks at Annapolis was placed only in the context of religious arguments. The questionable ability of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to implement anything he agreed to, considering the chaotic, divided nature of the Palestinian Authority, was apparently to Moyers not even worth mentioning.  Critics of the Annapolis negotiations, regardless of the rationale for the criticism, were all deemed "extremists" and "religious die-hards," - apparently even people who objected to the Annapolis joint statement because it implied that Israel commits terrorism and incitement.

* In the second part of the program, Moyers interviewed critics of CUFI and AIPAC, such as M.J. Rosenberg, Director of Policy Analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, and Ron Sider, President of Evangelicals for Social Action.  The focus of the questions and answers in this part gave the impression that the biggest obstacles to peace were Israel and American lobbying groups, such as CUFI and AIPAC.  Seemingly, to Moyers and Rosenberg, people who expressed concerns about radical Muslim extremism and terrorism were more problematic than the terrorists themselves.  

* Employing derogatory labeling, Moyers accuses what he terms "the right wing, the radicals" "and AIPAC and others" of somehow silencing debate about the Israel-Palestinian conflict:

BILL MOYERS: But in this country the right wing, the radicals, if you will, you call them radicals, they are radicals. They're organized. They have the money. They have this alliance with the Republican Party. And AIPAC and others make it impossible for Democrats to have the kind of conversation that you're having here. I mean, you don't hear this debate in the Democratic debates, do you?

In his response, M.J. Rosenberg contradicted himself, asserting that politicians were intimidated by AIPAC, that AIPAC had a "real chilling effect on debate," but also claiming that AIPAC actually had no power. 

Both Rosenberg and Ron Sider said that many politicians personally sided against AIPAC on the issues, but were too intimidated to speak out:

RON SIDER: I think that MJ's basically right on that. And I'm sorry about that. I wish they did. I wish they had the political courage to-- in fact, say what they think. Because I mean, it's really momentous in terms of the U.S. and the history of the world and our foreign policy. 

Perhaps it never occurred to Sider and Rosenberg that AIPAC is powerful simply because so many Americans agree with AIPAC that it is entirely appropriate for the United States and Israel to have a strong relationship, based on the shared values of democracy, pluralism, freedom and accountability.  Since the Palestinians routinely have anti-American, anti-Jewish rants in their newspapers and state-sponsored TV shows, even those for children, and at times include calls for the destruction of America and Israel, and because Palestinian culture today encourages their children to seek martyrdom and not life, and extols family "honor" above women's rights, it's not a mystery why many Americans want our government to consistently side with Israel.  

* Sider posits that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will ease conflict between the US and the Muslim world:

"...1.3 billion Muslims in the world tend to judge the U.S. and see it through the lens of Israel-Palestine. And all those Muslims perceive the U.S. as very one-sided. If we would solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, that would remove one major problem in the huge dangerous relationship between the U.S. with its large Christian majority and the Muslim world." 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a useful tool for Arab and Muslim dictators.  They rant about it whenever they want to distract their people away from their lack of freedoms and progress.  Due to years of incessant incitement, millions of Muslims are indeed agitated against Israel.  Solving the conflict in a fair and just way will in no way pacify those indoctrinated, because anything short of Israel's destruction will not seem fair and just to them.  And "solving" the conflict in a way that is unfair to Israel will simply embolden the extremists, making them even more dangerous to other democracies, such as America and the UK.  Too bad Moyers didn't ask Sider if he could recall any occasion in history when appeasement of supremacist extremists had reduced conflict in the long-term. 

*Rosenberg engages in revisionist history:

BILL MOYERS: But you were optimistic in 1999. What happened?

M.J. ROSENBERG: What happened in 1999 was the failed summit of 2000. A bunch of--- Barak and Arafat both dropped the ball. Clinton did his best. I give, you know, Clinton credit there.

In fact, "both" sides were not at fault.  But President Clinton clearly blamed Arafat, and not Israel, for the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000.  And Palestinian leaders are on record as stating that they had a strategic plan to unleash violence after Camp David. 

* Sider continues:

"I'm assuming, 'cause I'm an optimist, that this time we've got leaders in place who really want to go for it and learned from what happened in 2000. So that's what makes me optimistic. "

Here's where one would think Moyers would have asked about the questionable leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Is he willing? If he is willing, is he able?  What about the other elected Palestinian leaders, the ones from Hamas?  But no such relevant questions or comments were forthcoming from Moyers.

To read the entire transcript of the show, click here.

Originally Published on 12/5/2007 for CAMERA