Ishmael Reed in Israel: Open Letter to CNN

Zvi Lando (Tekoa)
December 28, 2000

To the Editors of CNN:

A few weeks ago, literary circles in Israel, both Jewish and Arab alike, were happily talking about the upcoming visit of the famous US African-American poet, Ishmael Reed. It was, during these dark times, expected to be an illuminating experience.

It was - for both us "locals", and for poet Reed himself.

Ishmael Reed, being a very intelligent man, and one who is not afraid of making public his opinions - is not, to say the least, a supporter on Israel. Being an intelligent man, those who are interested in literature and social issues, take what this man says to heart - regardless of his opinions about us.

The world expects of our intelligent elite to have opinions that do not necessarily agree with our own - but we respect them, and try to understand them.

The world also expects such intelligent people to be just that - intelligent - especially when it comes to the issues they talk about.

To get to the point.

In the Left-wing, anti-religious, Peace process supporting Israeli daily - "Ha'aretz" of Friday Dec. 22, 2000 ("Arts and Letters" section B Page 11) Is a long article with an interview with Ishmael Reed. It publishes his famous poem "beware: do not read this poem".

In this article, Mr. Reed tells of his tour of our area, the Middle east, and tells us something of deep importance:

"In an interview with him (Mr. Reed) at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, which organized his visit in Israel, Reed sounded quite formal. Prior to his visit, he said, most of his information about Israel came from watching CNN and was quite limited. The information he gathered from the American media was not enough for him to know, for instance, that there are Arab citizens living within the Green Line, and that many of them speak Hebrew. "I was surprised to find that 18% of Israel's population are Arabs", he says. Until I came here, I thought there was complete separation between Jews and Arabs, and that the Arabs live only in the West Bank."

I believe that Mr. Reeds statements, since they concern the CNN network you are responsible for, deserve some kind of reaction on your part, and as such, I am publishing this letter on our web site, and promise to publish your reply when it arrives.

The CNN network is seen around the world as the future in bringing us information. All I can say is that if this is how you are informing people about an area of the world that many people read about and are interested in - I can imagine how poorly you are doing when reporting about countries that are far away from us, and not so "important" - like China, Russia, Korea, and Brazil ....

This reminds me of a game I play every time I leave Israel. On a plane (and it doesn't matter if I am in Europe, the US or Asia) I start up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. I tell them that I am from Israel. This always interests them. After some small talk, I ask them, in a playful way: So tell me, do you know how many people live in Israel?

At first, they are ashamed that they do not know, so I prod them a bit and ask them to give a guess. The numbers go from anywhere from 30 million to a woman (who teaches at Chicago university) who told me 200 million...

When I tell them that there are 6 million, and close to 20% of those are Arabs or other non-Jews - they can't believe it.

I won't even tell you what happens when they are told that the "Greater Israel" (that ex-Sec. of State James Baker told us we would have to forget about) could almost fit into the "Greater New Jersey" of the United States. "Greater Israel", if, by chance, you didn't hear baker, meant "Tiny Israel" plus the territories liberated by Israel in the 1967 war.

I am not writing this to blame the CNN network for not educating your viewers. After all, when we go to the movies and see a huge head of the actor appear, no one is expected to think that this is the actual size of the actor's head ...

On the other hand, at best, your network is being ingenious, and for that I do blame you since it could not be that this is unknown to you. A free press can become corrupt without having to resort to lies - all it needs to do is to hold back a few facts ...

I ask you:

Why is that intelligent, outspoken people like Poet Ishmael Reed do not know the most basic facts about this country that you make so much money on by "reporting" about it?

How is it that people do not know that after 52 years and Israel is a tiny country, besieged by enemies, mis-understood by it's friends, mis-represented in the United Nations (maybe we should split up Israel into 50 different countries and then go to vote at the UN?) and thought to be a huge country with tens of millions of people that segregates the Arabs into a corner, allowing only Jews to flourish?

Again - beware - you may be the next unfortunate to look into the mirror and say: "I have met the enemy and the enemy is us!"

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