January 1996, pgs. 45-46
Media Watch
Ted Koppel’s 1995 Jerusalem Town Meeting: Involuntary Good Journalism
By Richard H. Curtiss
Midway in the intifada and early in the “peace process,” a “town meeting” arranged by ABC “Nightline” host Ted Koppel brought then little-known Palestinians such as Hanan Ashrawi into the same auditorium with members of the Israeli Knesset representing both hard-line and pro-peace factions. Some of the Palestinians pointed out that they had broken a curfew and risked their lives and freedom at Israeli roadblocks to reach the Jerusalem auditorium in which the program was made, and the Israelis spent most of their time debating each other in stunningly acrimonious terms. It was good journalism and the beginning of an education for interested Americans in some of the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Perhaps seeking to duplicate that innovative triumph, Koppel held another “town meeting” broadcasting live from the same Jerusalem auditorium immediately after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Recognizing that since the Palestinians have nothing left to give up, the fate of the peace process now will be determined by the dynamics between its Israeli supporters and detractors, Koppel had on his right on the stage Israeli hardliners, including a spokesman for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and on his left Israeli Labor and Meretz Knesset members, including Haim Ramon, who shortly after the program was appointed interior minister in the new Shimon Peres government.
The program opened with a live interview from her Tel Aviv home with Rabin’s widow, Leah Rabin; another interview with Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu with whom Leah Rabin had avoided shaking hands at her husband’s funeral; and still another live interview from his office with Shimon Peres. Interspersed between the interviews, which included a second interview toward the end of the program with Peres, Israeli, Palestinian Arab and American Jewish members of the audience asked questions of the Knesset members on the stage.
From the beginning, Koppel, a long-time Jewish supporter of Israel, professed shock at the bitterness expressed toward Jewish opponents of the peace process by Leah Rabin. She reacted with anger at his surprise, and things rolled downhill from there. Twice Koppel, almost in desperation, tried to hush the shouting partisans on stage by pointing out that since all six were talking at once, no one in the television audience could understand a word they were saying. The moment he finished, the shouting resumed.
The program continued for more than two hours until well after 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and twice Koppel interrupted the dialogue with news bulletins. He reported that thile the debate was on the air two Israelis had been arrested at Rabin’s tomb. One had spat on it and the other apparently was preparing to urinate on it when Israeli guards intervened. Later Koppel announced that in Gaza Palestinian police had arrested persons apparently affiliated with terrorist Abu Nidal on charges that they had infiltrated into Gaza to assassinate Yasser Arafat. “It’s been a busy morning so far in Israel and Gaza,” Koppel explained to his U.S. audience.
Despite his best efforts to replicate the atmosphere of his original Jerusalem “town meeting,” which contained the seeds of a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, the 1995 Jerusalem town meeting finally degenerated into unabated shouting. Koppel, who had extended the program in an apparent attempt to bring about some order, looked utterly defeated at the image projected abroad of an Israel standing at the crossroads of peace or unending war with its neighbors, but so bitterly divided that its contending leaders would not consult with each other. As it turned out, Leah Rabin had the last word, but not on the Nightline program. In an interview with aWashington Post writer the next day she remarked, “I had no idea that Koppel was so right-wing.”
Whatever Koppel intended, like his first Jerusalem “town meeting,” his second Jerusalem program, which so accurately reflected an Israel at war with itself, still was good journalism.