TELEVISION REVIEWS : ‘CALIFORNIA’ BACK

Arabs and Jews talk. Palestinians and Zionists argue passionately without coming to blows.

You are watching no fantasy. Television--so often faulted for glibly defining conflicting ethnic groups in rigid, polarizing, stereotypical terms--tonight takes a side road in showing traditional combatants in spirited but peaceful dialogue.

“Why is it that someone from Poland or Russia or the United States can’t understand my pain?” Jews are asked by a Palestinian on “My Enemy Is My Friend,” a half-hour program at 7:30 tonight on Channel 28 that begins a second season of KCET’s valuable documentary series, “California Stories.”

The opening for this California story is a meeting of the Cousins Club, one of several groups consisting of Jews and Arabs regularly coming together here to hash out their differences. The groups are spinoffs from the Foundation for Mideast Communication.

This intriguing, balanced program, produced by Steven Talley, is no pie-in-the-sky, peace-in-our-time reverie. Los Angeles is not a metaphor for the Middle East. What happens here, far from the actual lines of bloody confrontation, may have no practical effect beyond easing local tensions between old antagonists.

Optimistically, though, tonight’s program does present foes in a neutral setting, unleashing anger within the bounds of reason, the gap between them narrowing ever so slightly.

KCET visits several meetings and prominently features Arab American political scientist George Irani and TV producer Zev Putterman, a Zionist, as well as pop music personality Casey Kasem and others who regularly participate in the dialogues.

A real jolt is the sight of Barry Krugel at a Foundation seminar having a relatively friendly debate with a Palestinian in front of the Channel 28 camera. Krugel’s past TV appearances have been largely confined to local newscasts as a member of the haranguing, hip-shooting Jewish Defense League (JDL).

It was JDL leader Irv Rubin who responded to the 1985 bombing death of Alex Odeh, director of the Orange County Arab-American Anti-Discrimination League, by saying: “I’m certainly not going to lose any sleep over it.” Ironically, Odeh’s sister, Ellen Nassab, also makes an appearance at one of the meetings shown tonight.

At the very minimum, “My Enemy Is My Friend” makes a good case for contact, while presenting parallel images, negating some of the ugly Arab stereotypes that have appeared on TV in the past. Are things changing for the better?

Said Kasem, a past harsh critic of TV’s anti-Arab caricatures, on the phone: “Today, I see a real commitment in the industry to eliminate this kind of negative stereotyping.”

Hope? A delicate flicker at least.