Israel’s Image on the Nightly News

In response to Martin Schram’s column addressed to Avi Pasner (“In the Eyes of the World,” Commentary, May 25):

Following your advice, I turned on my TV. Unfortunately, we do not get American TV in Israel, so I just could tune in to Israel TV (which is as free and critical as any American network), and this is what I saw:

A 5-month-old Israeli baby bleeding from his head after his parents’ car was stoned by a Palestinian mob; I saw the body of a Jewish restaurant owner stabbed to death by his Arab workers; I saw Arab youths rioting and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at young Israeli soldiers, wounding scores of them.

I also saw what you watched on American TV, but the problem is that you saw only part of what we were given, and therefore you have only, at best, a fragmented, incomplete and distorted idea of the real situation in the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

You are, of course, right when you say that powerful pictures tell powerful truths, but what if you get only part of the powerful pictures? Did you watch, for example, all that I described to you, and if not, don’t you think you should be given the possibility before passing judgment on whether we tell you the truth or not?

Believe me, dear Martin, that when I say that Israel is acting with utmost restraint I say it knowing perfectly well what kind of picture you see on your TV set. I say it proudly, because I believe that no other country faced with the onslaught of violence we are witnessing here would act with such restraint, and try so hard to avoid human casualties and tragedies.

AVI PASNER, Media Adviser to the prime minister of Israel, Jerusalem