‘Days of Rage’ Deserves All the Attention

Rarely has a television program been as bitterly savaged before it aired. Yet rarely has there been a program with a topic as volatile as this one.

The rage directed at Jo Franklin-Trout and her heavily tilted, but still-valuable and intensely powerful documentary about the Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has almost obscured the program itself.

That should end tonight when, at last, after delays and months of fiery controversy, “Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians” is presented to the nation. It arrives on PBS as the hot-potato centerpiece of a 2 1/2-hour spread (at 9 p.m. on Channels 28, 15 and 24) titled “Intifada: The Palestinians and Israel.”

Framing the Palestinian-favoring “Days of Rage” are separately produced taped pieces tilted toward Israel, the last of which is followed by a useful 40-minute panel discussion examining Franklin-Trout’s program and the issues it raises--and doesn’t raise. Costing almost as much as the 90-minute “Days of Rage,” these appendages appear to have been added as a sort of spin control, at least in partial response to enormous advance criticism of the program from mostly Jewish groups.

That criticism has swelled into a crusade to discredit both Franklin-Trout and her program, at times approaching an ugly smear campaign. The lobbyists have ranged from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (calling the program “factual manipulations”) to the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, which phoned at least one TV critic with an offer to send him material critical of “Days of Rage.”

Yet “Days of Rage” is important and--despite what its harshest critics say--very much deserves this TV stage.

It offers faces you seldom see in closeup, and sounds you seldom hear. A Palestinian girl: “I am 7 years old. My father was killed in front of my house during the month of Ramadan.”

It offers fresh voices, mostly from Palestinians usually omitted from the slender sound bites of American TV.

“Days of Rage” is never more shocking than when chronicling the wretched squalor and hopelessness in camps inhabited by many Palestinians in the occupied territories. Or more indicting than when touring the rubble of a Palestinian villager’s house that was demolished as part of Israel’s controversial policy of collective punishment. Or more appalling than when showing the terrible back wounds of a young boy said to have been beaten by Israeli soldiers. Or more moving than when a schoolgirl says what she hopes to gain from the intifada , the Arabic word for uprising: “an identity.” Or more fascinating than when letting Palestinians explain their strategies for the intifada.

Her purpose, Franklin-Trout states tonight, is to show “who they (the young Palestinians) are, what they are, what they want and how they intend to get it, and what end for the crisis now seems possible.” Bravo to that.

But not to all of “Days of Rage,” which, unfortunately, is not only a trial of Israeli policy in the occupied territories, but also one in which, almost always, only the prosecution’s case is presented.

Documentaries with strong points of view only strengthen a society that purports to cherish freedom of expression. Moreover, some of the charges here are echoed by some human rights groups. Michael H. Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, says in “Days of Rage”:

“From a human rights point of view, there are some particularly disturbing problems (in) the use of live ammunition (and) the ongoing practice of beatings (by Israeli troops), which seem excessive in some situations.”

Yet the charges are so strong that granting Israelis the opportunity to respond, at least generically, should have been a given, a sliver of fairness that “Days of Rage” could have accommodated without softening its case.

To a large extent, “Days of Rage” is a succession of horror stories from Palestinians accusing Israelis of heinous acts in trying to put down the intifada. Typical: “They burst into our house, the occupation army. They beat my father, my mother, my sisters.”

Franklin-Trout, who is also the reporter and narrator for her program, is an excellent documentary storyteller. What “Days of Rage” lacks most, however, is context.

Some samples:

--When Israel gained statehood, the Arabs “were enraged” and “war broke out,” says Franklin-Trout, making “war” sound as blameless as a case of measles.

--Also omitted in Franklin-Trout’s shorthand history is any mention of Palestinians also being victimized by Jordan and Syria.

--A Palestinian relief worker finds Israelis “obsessed by security,” as if there is no history of Arab terrorism directed against Jews. And on this program, moreover, there isn’t.

--We hear about the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s “alleged dark and bloody history,” the “alleged” being a softening word excluded from charges against Israelis.

--Outside a facility where Palestinians are held by Israelis for months without being charged, Franklin-Trout hears stories of abuse from Palestinians. “They would put him in jail, a small kid?” she asks, incredulously. Small kids are casualties of the intifada. You wish that just once, however, Franklin-Trout would play devil’s advocate and ask Palestinians about provocation, as with the man who tells her that Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinians “for simply walking in the street.”

The shorter taped pieces that precede and follow “Days of Rage” were prepared by New York’s WNET-TV, the PBS “presenting” station for “Intifada: The Palestinians and Israel.” Mostly, they are an Israeli’s-eye-view that attempts to justify Israeli policies and actions in the occupied territories.

Also produced by WNET, and ably and fairly moderated by Hodding Carter, the panel discussion is a spirited debate whose participants are Alan L. Keyes, an assistant secretary of State and ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council in the Reagan Administration; Seymour D. Reich, international president of B’nai B’rith; Richard W. Murphy, who was assistant secretary of State for Near East and East Asian Affairs from 1983 until recently; Jerusalem Post correspondent Walter Ruby, and James J. Zogby, executive director of the Arab American Institute.

Unfortunately, the acrimony surrounding “Days of Rage” is sure to linger.

Speaking from Washington, Franklin-Trout dismissed an article to appear in the Sept. 18 edition of The New Republic as the “final salvo” in the offensive to undercut her program. Written by Steven Emerson, a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report, the article charges that “Days of Rage” was made “in close cooperation” with the Arab American Cultural Foundation, on whose board Franklin-Trout sits.

Denying the charge, Franklin-Trout said that she joined the foundation’s board “a year after I finished the film.” She also rejected the article’s assertion that she had sold the foundation rights for her program’s “international distributuion and national distribution after it had been aired by PBS.”

Franklin-Trout has said she financed “Days of Rage” entirely from sales of cassettes of her previous documentaries to various organizations, including the foundation. PBS has confirmed that it rejected Franklin-Trout’s suggestion to include the names of those organizations in the “Days of Rage” credits because such a listing would have gone against PBS policy.

Perhaps even more injurious to “Days of Rage” was last month’s public criticism of the program by Posner of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “I’ve disassociated myself from it,” said Posner, who added that he stood by his comments made to Franklin-Trout in “Days of Rage,” but faulted the program for being “highly simplistic” and excluding “present Israeli mainstream views.”

Franklin-Trout labeled Posner’s criticism “disingenuous.” It’s a word that somehow fits much of the controversy shrouding “Days of Rage.”