The American Broadcasting Company will televise an hour-long documentary on the Palestine Liberation Organization and its supporters, “Terror in the Promised Land,” at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30 over the entire ABC network of some 200 stations, an ABC official said today.
The documentary was made by Malcolm Clarke, a writer-producer on the ABC staff, according to Richard Richter, senior producer of the ABC documentary unit. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that there had been no special reason for selection of the Oct. 30 date, other than the documentary was ready and the time slot was available. Richter said the programs deals with the role of the PLO, which he described as involving a problem that is “perennial” in the Middle East situation and “often not dealt with in depth” on the media.
Richter said that while the program was designed to focus on an analysis of the “Palestinian problem,” it did include interviews with Israelis including Ranaan Weitz, co-chairman of the settlement department of the World Zionist Organization. He confirmed a report that Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Agriculture Minister and leading advocate of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, declined an invitation to participate in the documentary. Richter said the program also included some documentary scenes depicting the Holocaust to indicate the pressures on Israel in the development of its policies.
DEPICTS ‘TRAGIC REALITY’
In the introduction to the documentary, Frank Reynolds, a leading ABC newscaster, declares that the program deals with “a tragic reality,” about “Palestinian men and women who resort to violence to advance their political cause. The violence is often inflicted on innocent victims, as well as on themselves, for they insist they are prepared to die to achieve their goal.”
Adding that “they also insist their plight is not adequately understood or reported in this country,” Reynolds adds “ABC News sought them out, in order to try to understand why they chose to become terrorists, to learn what they believe. This program is not about right and wrong. It is about the Palestinian perception of right and wrong. It is an important ingredient in an enduring Middle East peace.”
Reynolds also terms the documentary one about “a people whose existence must not be denied — even though the world condemns the tactics and the terror advocated by their leaders.” Richter said the documentary carries a warning to parents suggesting parental guidance in allowing children to watch the program because some of the scenes of Palestinian violence are included.
The program shows, reportedly for the first time on television, close-up views and interviews with a Palestinian terrorist leader in southern Lebanon, Abu Jihad, and other terrorists training for “suicide missions” inside Israel.
WEITZ STATES HIS VIEW
According to the documentary, Weitz, who agreed to speak with Clarke after Sharon refused, declared that “we cannot escape from a historic fact,” that while Israel created “land out of marshes,” Israel “used Arab land for our survival. The problem and the issue is a clash between two justices.” Weitz is quoted also as saying “we had to live” and the Palestinians “had to regain their dignity and their national self-expression, and the answer for such a situation is a painful compromise. There is no escape from that.”
Abu Hassan, whose real name is believed to be Hassan Ali Salmeh, and who Israeli and Western intelligence experts reportedly consider responsible for “Black September” terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere, appears on the program to predict that “American targets in the Middle East” will be victims of a campaign of post-Camp David terrorism which he said is now being organized by PLO elements.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
