3 Networks In Dispute With Israel

By SALLY BEDELL

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The three major United States commercial television networks have come into conflict with the Israeli Government over what network news executives charge is “political censorship” of their reports on the war in Lebanon.

The networks charged that this week the Israelis began to censor certain film segments — primarily depicting Lebanese casualties — because such sequences are politically embarrassing. Israeli officials said that these reports constituted enemy propaganda that Israel has no obligation to help transmit to the United States.

“Every country normally has military censorship in wartime,” said Ze’ev Chafets, director of the Government press office. “No other country has been asked to put its communications at the disposal of the enemy. Israel has been bending over backward to help, but the networks have brought in things that were clearly psychological warfare.

When we didn’t permit them, they self-righteously attacked us for political censorship.” Network officials expressed dismay over the dispute and acknowledged that Israel had been better than most nations at war in accommodating foreign correspondence.

Said Reuven Frank, president of NBC News, expressing a commonly held view: “Until this week we had more access from Israel than anywhere else. Our people in Damascus can’t get stories at all, and likewise from the Palestine Liberation Organization. The British imposed what amounted to a total blackout in the Falklands.

But this is a new experience with the Israelis that amounts to a shock.” Traditional Censorship Military censorship in the Middle East, as in other war zones, customarily has focused on matters of strategic sensitivity, such as the identity of equipment and personnel or disclosure of military tactics that could violate national security.

The trouble began this week after the Syrians closed the satellite transmission facility in Beirut used by news broadcasters. On Monday, the Israeli military censor banned the transmission of an ABC News interview with Yasir Arafat, the leader of the P.L.O., that had been filmed in Beirut and transported to Tel Aviv for satellite transmission to the United States.

ABC defied the order and transmitted the interview, which appeared on “World News Tonight.” In retaliation, Israel suspended ABC’s satellite-transmission privileges from Tel Aviv, and ABC charged that Israel had committed “an intolerable act of political censorship.”

After three days of discussions, a letter of apology from ABC’s acting Tel Aviv bureau chief, Scott Willis, and a telegram from George Watson, vice president of ABC News in New York, pledging that the network would abide by Israeli censorship guidelines, Israel restored the network’s satellite transmission last night.

At CBS, two reports have been subjected to censorship to which the network has objected. Wednesday, Allen Pizzey, a contract reporter for CBS in Beirut, filed a one-minute 45-second story about civilian casualties in Beirut.

In the middle of its appearance on “The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather,” an announcement stated “22 seconds deleted by Israeli censors” as the screen stayed black for four seconds.

Another three-minute report the same day by Dan Kladstrup, a correspondent, about the effect of the war on the P.L.O., said Van Gordon Sauter, president of CBS News, was “stopped cold” by Israeli military censors. The offending segments in Mr. Pizzey’s report, according to Mr. Sauter, dealt with “the shortage of medical care and the absence of medical technicians.”

Although CBS has filed no formal protest, the CBS bureau chief in Tel Aviv, Charles Wolfson, said Mr. Sauter, has “expressed our displeasure at the removal of materials we perceive to be political, not military.” At the same time, said Mr.

Sauter, “we are not unaware that the Israelis are conducting a war and that we have asked to use their facility to convey material which in their minds may be detrimental to their effective conduct of not only a military action but a far broader information action.”

The same evening a story for the “NBC Nightly News” about refugees by Jack Reynolds was blocked by Israeli censors, and two sequences showing wounded children were dropped from a story by Steve Mallory, according to Paul Greenberg, executive producer of the program. NBC plans no protest, said Mr. Frank, because “we can do a lot more good by mentioning it on the air.”

Indeed, Tom Brokaw, the anchor, not only described the censorship on the air, but John Chancellor also chided Israel the following night for using censorship increasingly “to protect Israel’s image and to serve its political goals.” Israeli officials deny any political motivations. “We don’t ask to censor material gathered in Beirut provided it is sent from Beirut,” said Mr.

Chafets. “If they want to send through us they have to abide by our ground rules. We are in a state of war with the P.L.O.” Mr. Chafets declined to say whether Israel was considering barring completely the transmission of material gathered in Lebanon: “The American networks are large and powerful and ingenious. They can probably find other ways of getting material out.”

Network officials said they were doing just that, although such measures are often more costly and difficult than using the Tel Aviv facilities. Said Mr. Chafets, “We feel we have been badly used in this situation, and we hope it is understandable.”

How this transcription was made

Masthead not readable on the scan. The label on the slide read: [masthead not on clipping] — No masthead, folio, date or dateline anywhere on this single-column cut, and no “Special to” credit — only the byline. Internal dating: the Israeli invasion of Lebanon began 6 June 1982; the story says “this week” four times, names Monday and Wednesday, and reports Israel restoring ABC’s transmission after three days of discussions, which is consistent with a Wednesday 9 June 1982 printing. Matches Maria’s first label for this slide. See the label-order note on s067_1: her four labels do not line up with the four images in order, and this image is the one her first label describes. — Complete column. The paper is faded in two places and I have noted my reading rather than passing it off as crisp: the last line of the ABC paragraph reads, as best I can make it out at 22x with autocontrast, “mission last night” — the letterforms are badly broken and “last night” is the only phrase I can fit to them, so treat it as a probable rather than certain reading. The word “embarrassing” at the end of the first paragraph is likewise a broken impression, but the context and the visible ascenders make it secure.

Cite this clipping

"3 Networks In Dispute With Israel," (newspaper unidentified), 9 June 1982. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1982-068. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1982-068