Dinitz Calls for New Information Program to Counter Anti-israel Treatment from Media Overseas

One of the lessons Israel should learn from the worldwide negative treatment Israel received from the media over its campaign in Lebanon is the need to coordinate the overseas information program of the government, Simcha Dinitz, former Ambassador to the United States, said.

Speaking at the 19th annual America-Israel dialogue here, sponsored by the American Jewish Congress, which this year focussed on the problem of Israeli information treatment overseas, Dinitz suggested appointment of a deputy minister in the Foreign Ministry to be responsible for such coordination.

He said absence of coordination among the various government agencies dealing with overseas information was one of the key reasons for Israel’s “information failure” in Lebanon. He suggested that a deputy minister was the best approach to the problem, rather than “complicating” Israel’s political system “with yet another minister.”

The dialogue began with a screening of a film which criticized NBC coverage of the war in Lebanon. The screening was followed by a defense of NBC by Paul Miller, the NBC Israel Bureau chief.

Dinitz suggested that reporters in west Beirut had been hostile to Israel, at least in part, to justify the fact that they had not covered the “rape of Lebanon” during the prior seven years.

Joshua Muravchik of the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, also criticized American media coverage of the war. However, he declared, this was less a matter of biased reporting than a reflection of the psychological atmosphere in the United States which, he said, views negatively any use of force and maintains that negotiations should be used to solve all problems.