ASSASSINATION AFTERMATH : MEDIA : TV Helped Israel Come to Terms With Its Grief

Prime time on Saturday night offered Israeli television watchers the usual fare: “Crocodile Dundee” on public Channel 1, a 1979 Israeli movie called “Going Steady” on private Channel 2.

Then shots rang out at a peace rally. Neither Israel nor its television industry may ever be the same again.

In the dramatic hours since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s two networks have become a vehicle for national catharsis, said industry leaders, critics and some prominent viewers.

“TV’s impact has been unparalleled because of the nature of the event itself,” said Dan Pattir, a former spokesman for Rabin. “If it does not promote healing, it at least brings people together and back to their senses, forcing them to reassess values and political beliefs.”

Rabin was shot offstage, but cameras have scarcely blinked since in recording the aftermath for a shocked nation.

“Both channels were at their best dealing under pressure with the unprecedented: the political murder of a Jewish politician by a Jew,” said Hedah Boshes, TV critic for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

Early broadcasts of the shooting were confused and sometimes inaccurate, Boshes said. There was footage of the rally but none of the shooting, although pictures would eventually be shown of police hustling away the gunman.

First reports said Rabin had not been badly hurt, including the repeatedly shown assertions of a hysterical woman who said she had been standing next to Rabin and that he was not hurt, Boshes said.

By the time a government statement at the hospital reported Rabin’s death, the entire country was glued to television. It would stay there for days that have been among the most painful in the history of a young country that is no stranger to violent change.

Often at the center of events in the volatile Middle East, Israelis thrive on their newspapers, hourly radio news bulletins and evening news.

“This is a country of news junkies,” said Zeev Chafets, writer and columnist. More than half of viewers see Cable News Network, Britain’s BBC and Sky News. Polyglot Israelis with cable also have news choices in a dozen languages, from Spanish and German to Russian and Arabic.

Transmitting in Hebrew against the powerful foreign competition, the two Israeli stations later made up for early lapses with moving coverage of mourners gathering outside Rabin’s home, at the site of the shooting and streaming in endless procession before his casket as it lay in state. It broadcast to-the-grave coverage as world leaders accompanied a peacemaker to his rest.

“For many years, television in Israel was regarded as the fire where the whole tribe gathers every night at 9. We have returned to our original role, become a source of information and of sympathy,” said Nachman Shai, director general of Channel 2.

“People shared feelings with the Rabin family and with one another. We helped every Israeli to get through the painful hours. We helped to release feelings.”

Counterpoints to the stiff-faced international television reporters, Israeli news professionals did not mask their emotions. Some wept as freely on camera as many of their viewers did at home.

“TV broadcasts captured the feeling that our ‘Israeliness,’ so personified by Rabin, had been shattered,” said Boshes.

Among programs aired in 48 hours of consecutive coverage by the 2-year-old private channel was an hourlong newsmagazine program about Rabin retransmitted with English translation around the world by CNN, Shai said.

“We inspired the atmosphere and feelings all over the country, all over the world,” he said.

Said Pattir: “TV has become an instrument of catharsis more than ever before. It brought Israelis the sense that they can’t hide anymore in their own corner. Everybody is in the midst of everything.”

At Channel 1, director general Yair Stern said: “ ‘Crocodile Dundee’ seems like a long time ago.”

When he rushed to his office Saturday night, Stern pulled out a government guide written in 1982 on the sort of programming that should follow the death of a prime minister. An anachronism.

“It called for prayers and classical music. That was clearly impossible, and we laid it aside. People wanted to know what was going on.

“We helped a country to mourn, to come to terms with its grief,” said Stern. “For the vast majority of people, television brought a sense of unity and saying no to violence. Maybe from now on we will behave differently.”

Television taught a people how to mourn, said critic Boshes. “When the cameras showed close-ups of faces, we witnessed a new ritual of mourning and sorrow. The nation cried with them. Television cultivated a new pattern of mourning. Showing the crowds attracted more people, many of them young.”

Government spokesman Uri Dromi wondered aloud, though, how long togetherness can last.

“We’re still in the middle of all this. Until now, TV’s role has been healing. People were united in mourning, but in the [long run I] wouldn’t bet on this. We’re split over the long-term issues; the split is still there.

“TV has accurately reflected the mood: It is indicating that the difficulties still exist,” he said.

Channel 1 will continue special programming through Sunday, because “people don’t want to go back to normal yet,” said Stern.

Politics resumes in earnest Monday, but television will air a lot of warm-up before then.

“Every nation has its own way of dealing with problems. We talk them to death. That is the role of television,” said Chafets.

As grieving continues, in the short term television has a healing role, said Boshes.

“In light of the many talk programs now--many words and no news--we realize that people are afraid to be alone.

“We try to fill the dark and threatening spaces with comforting words and pictures.”