;.cNYT 5 May, Erlanger
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
DATE:  8 May 96
REF:   NYT Weekly Review 5 May (Erlanger)
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SUMMARY:  
Argues that USA policy toward Lebanon should be less pro-Israel.  
	Apparently a PR job for the Slippery Jim Baker Institute.

DETAILS:  Headline is 'Is Peace's 'Honest Broker' Too Close toPeres'.  However, the implicit dichotomy here is not (as a readerwould first assume) Peres/Netanyahu, but rather Israel/Arabstates.
	There is an ironic super-head "Through Thick and Thin", and acandid sub-head, in the sort of 70s Yuppie Weltanshauungcharacteristic of the Clinton administration: 
 "With attention fixed on Israeli feelings, Arabs feel left out"
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Steven Erlanger, if memory serves, is an exceptionalreporter/writer, distinguished for work on Russia and Bosnia. (Incidentally, might be that he's Jewish, from Cambridge(Massachusetts).)
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	The article is a color-by-numbers PR job, touching thetraditional buttons: "honest broker" , "refusal to criticizeIsrael's tight closure"
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Well heck, we refuse to critize the USA's tight closureof the Rio Grande border with Texan-occupied Mexico.
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	The Phantom Expert rides again:  "There is a growing sensethat Washington has lost its sense of moral preportion." 
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Where is The New Yorker now that we finally need it?
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COMMENT:  IMAGE OF ISRAEL AS WIMP:
There's also a canard that has yet to break into the big-leagues: Israel as Nervous Nellie.  It started with the "hand-holding" linein the Gulf War [when the USA restrained Israel from takingmilitary action against Iraq, and to instead rely militarily onwhat turned out to have beeb an ineffective USA anti-missleshield].
	So here we have "Israeli confidence, badly cracked by theassassination" , "the effort to salve Israelis", "support forIsrael at its anxious moments" ...
	Well, looks like Slippery Jim never gives up.  Comeback time?
	Point is, the USA does not like wimps, for all Bill Clinton'sfashionable bathos.  Israel's USA image hit a high with Exodus: not victims, but heros.  And the USA does not often stick withlosers; "the business of America is business".  What's confusingis that they're such consummate hypocrites; this is the nation of"Have a Good Day" and "The Customer is always Right".
	The USA got fed up with Jimmy Carter's guilt-trip liberalismand swung back to the reactionaries; my guess it will do so againin November.  Even Clinton's fans can barely stand his style;Israel ought not play to it. 