To: CNN news agency
Date: June 24th, 2002
Subject: Opposition to the weeklong series on Israeli "Victims of Terror"
We, the employees of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), are writing to you with great alarm and concern regarding the programming of a week long series of interviews with Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks, which are scheduled to start airing on CNN today, June 24th.
This series, entitled "Victims of Terror," is presented subsequent to massive verbal aggression to your news network from supporters of Israel and Zionism, who have written in opposition to Mr. Ted Turner's comments made on June 18th, by which he equated Palestinian attacks with Israeli military attacks as both being acts of terrorism. As a response to this aggression, Mr. Eason Jordan, the president of CNN newsgathering, has defended CNN in a recent interview with Israel Television by saying that "CNN is not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli. We're fair, we're responsible in our reporting, [and] we try to be as accurate as we possibly can be." He further added that "[CNN] want[s] to focus more on the victims of terror. We have done that, [but] I don't think we've done that enough."
We believe that by airing such series, CNN has broken its promise of "fairly", "accurately," and "responsibly" reporting due to the following reasons:
- CNN is portraying Israeli family members of those killed in Palestinian attacks as the sole victims of terror in the region, totally disregarding the daily terror, humiliation, and suffering to which Palestinians are subjected. In fact, as we write to you, over 60% of our staff members are under siege in their own homes in Ramallah and Bethlehem due to Israel's policy of collective punishment.
- CNN has not announced its intension to air parallel series of interviews with Palestinian family members of victims of Israeli state terror, such as the ones recently killed in a Jenin market when Israeli tanks opened fire on a large crowd shopping there without previous warning that a curfew was still in effect. Others have died on checkpoints due to their inability to reach hospitals in time, and even in their own homes during recent Israeli incursions as tank shells, air bombs, or flying bullets hit them aimlessly.
- CNN is appeasing the Israeli government and its supporters by counteracting Mr. Turner's comments at the expense of fairness to the Palestinians.
Therefore, upon your moral obligation to impartiality and your duty as an international news agency, and upon our commitment to an effective dialogue based on the free and candid exchange of information, we demand that you present a program equal in time and quality, and in the same time-slot, on family members of Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression and state terror. Or, at the very least, we demand that you have Palestinian victims in various Palestinian cities currently being terrorized by the Israeli occupation army to respond immediately after each part of the series. This way, both sides will be equally heard.
Thank you,
MIFTAH
The Palestinian Initiative for the promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) is a Palestinian, Jerusalem-based, independent institution committed to fostering the principles of democracy and effective dialogue based on the free and candid exchange of information and ideas. http://www.miftah.org/