Ha-Ir , 14.7.06, Pp: 38-41
And Please, Don’t Forget To Smile.
The Arab on your television screen is accusing, defensive or speaks about humus. Nothing personal, simply a matter of ratings. A special workshop was held this week at Keshet to train Arab interviewees not on the background of their ethnicity. To be seen in your living room soon, or not. Amir Manor Sunday morning, in the offices of Keshet at Ramat Hahayal. Tzvika Pick wanders the corridors, Muli Segev runs from floor to floor. The editors an d technicians are in and out of the editing rooms and, on the fourth floor, the management floor, a handful of disconnected people are meeting: the head of the Department of Pharmacology at Ben-Gurion University, the director of the Unit for Environmental Quality in the Northern Triangle, two lawyers from a senior firm specializing in human rights and the status of women, a number of heads of regional councils from the north of the country, a doctor of Middle Eastern History from Beit Berl College, a director and co-CEO of the Excellent public relations firm and various other miscellaneous professionals, guzzlers of cakes and imbibers of coffee. What did they have in common? They are all Arabs. A few months ago, members of ―Eretz Nehederet‖ went into a ste reotype of the Arab as reflected in the Israeli television screen. Omeletta, Odetta’s wonderful sister, hosted Ahmad Tibi in the studio prior to Tu Bishvat (―Happy Tibishvat‖) so that he could recommend the humous bars of Abu Ghosh to all those traveling to Jerusalem. This was the start of a string of jokes. ―Perhaps you could tell us where the most Asli humous in Abu Ghosh can be had?‖. It is not important that he is a politician, a Palestinian, a gynecologist by training. Omeletta needs him for what the television needs Arabs – that they should recommend humous and dips. Subsequently, Tibi advises a pregnant viewer and Omeletta dissents: ―It’s very nice that you’re participating, Ahmad, but we’re talking about pregnancy not pitot.‖ ―For your information, I’m a gynecologist,‖ Tibi attempts to blow her away. ―A gynecologist? Before that you said that you’re an Arab. Make up your mind. Are you a doctor or an Arab?‖ What is this then? Arab doctors? Not here on our television. Arab lawyers dealing with human rights? In Europe perhaps, but not in Israel. A variety of views and positions within the Arab public? What are you talking about? This is no longer so. Sunday morning, the family gathered at Keshet for a first -ever event: a workshop for the training of Arabs as interviewees in the Israeli media. ACCUSATION AND SELF-DEFENSE Three bodies are behind the new workshop: Keshet, Agenda – the Israeli Center for Strategic Communications, and Musawa – the Center for Arab Rights in Israel. ―The media presents a picture that creates a reality,‖ sa ys Agenda’s Director, Vered Livne. ―An Arab accent today represents an immediate threat, therefore, Arabs are not represented on TV. We have to reach a situation where, if an Arab physician gives me advise on how to protect my child against poisoning, for example, I will
- 2 not feel threatened. We have, therefore, gathered this group together and brought professionals in the field of the media to give them tools on how to be interviewed in order to change the stereotype. I want to add some coloring to TV, to put everything in society before the viewers. Each minority is a multifaceted fabric of capacities and views. Absence from the media means absence from the public debate.‖ Why are there no Arabs on our screens – as presenters, reporters, interviewees? A discerning look at our main stream outlets, Channels 2 and 10, reveals that the screen time they receive is minuscule, as also their hardships, their world outlook, agenda. In Israel, the way it is is that whoever does not make it to the screen simply does not exist. The Arabs are considered a threat for the ratings. More correctly, a commercial threat. They chase viewers away. Arabs? On prime time? You’re making the share-holders laugh. Arab physicians on morning programs? The Jewish mother will immediately turn to the rival channel. Arabs have one place on our screen, and that is not connected to health, education, economics and so on. In every such field, there are Arab key personnel, but they do not reach the television other than for talks about folk-lore or when there are hullabaloos on a political background. The Arab whom we know from the screen, therefore, is branded as bad or defensive and lacking confidence. And if one relates to the television as one of the significant factors shaping the world outlook of the Israeli public, one realizes how significant this matter is. The future will tell: Is the workshop which was held this week at Keshet a first sign of a change and will we, in the future, see Arabs on health, entertainment, leisure, morning programs, or is this just a fig leaf? Did the franchise -holders not undertake before the Second Authority that they would promote multiculturalism in Israel?
Udi Leon- Keshet
Jaafar Farah- Musawa
Vered Livne-Agenda
- 3 BLACKMAIL AND AGGRESSION The morning began at ten. About thirty participants from around the country gathered on the fourth floor facing a panel of four experts — Vered Livne, Agenda: ―If a program editor looks for a doctor for a morning talk show, he will contact a Jewish doctor because, when an Arab doctor appears in the media, he carries on his shoulders his entire minority group, which triggers a sense of threat. In most cases, it does not matter what subject you have come to speak about, people will relate to you as an Arab.‖ Jaafar Farah, Musawa Center: ―Who funds Reshet and Keshet? We do. We are the purchasing power. We are the target population for the advertisers. We are the clients. But today they do not see us as clients. A threat of a consumer boycott of the large companies in the economy will lead to results. Either way, we are talking here about twenty percent of the consumer public.‖ Udi Leon, Keshet: ―The Arab public is perceived as lacking a sense of humor. Start to laugh, to adopt laughter – sarcastic and political. The more the Jewish viewer gets to know the Arab not as one who hits you on the head with a hammer but as a relaxed person with knowledge and opinions, so will the chance increase of getting your messages across.‖
Agenda’s Executive Director, Vered Livne; the person in charge of multiculturalism at Keshet, Udi Leon; the Director of the Musawa Center, Jaafar Farah; and a director at the Excellent Office, Aroub Rinawi. The day was run by the spokeswomen of the Musawa Center, the Arab competitor from ―Drosh Manhig‖, Abeer Qobti. Leon opened the event. ―There are a number of problems with the appearance of the Arab public in the Israeli media,‖ he says. ―First among t hem is that the Arabs appear on the television unsmilingly. And not only do they not smile, they are defensive and, since the best defense is attack, they also attack the viewers ideologically. And when they are given a stage to express themselves, they squeeze every second of air time out of it. ―Among the Arab public, there is some mixture regarding the media,‖ Leon adds. ―There are all sorts of channels and you have to know what you are getting. Channel 2 is the most dominant and there, too, there is a division between news and entertainment. What disturbs the integration of Arabs in this medium is the fact that we have an ideological public, and Channel 2, which is in essence an entertainment channel, does not like ideology – either left or right. There is, therefore, a dissonance between the location and the type of appearance. If you appear on a morning show and start to talk ideology, you are pressuring the morning viewers. Ideology is certainly not something bad,‖ he says. ―The trick is how t o work to promote your agenda and still understand the system.‖ Channel 2 has no ideology? Some would dispute the claim. We’ll return to it later. Meanwhile, Leon raises a significant point: humor. ―The Arab public is perceived as being humorless,‖ he says. Start to laugh, to adopt laughter – sarcastic and political.
- 4 Come in a mood that matches the venue and you will be invited again. The more the Jewish viewer gets to know the Arab not as one who hits you on the head with a hammer but as a relaxed person with knowledge and opinions, so will the chance increase of getting your messages across.‖ The last thing Mr. Leon recommends is ―turn to the personal place and not to the general, collective, political space.‖ What does that mean? ―Every story – even a political story – can be conveyed through a person to person line. The television set sits at home, in the living room. You are not in the city square. Speeches to the nation are not suitable for television. Speak with me, with my family, eyeball to eyeball. With a personal story, you have a much greater chance of speaking to my heart and of breaking my stereotype of the Arab.‖ BOYCOTTS AND THREATS Vered Livne’s turn. ―The discussion about values and political issues on TV is weak, problematic and superficial,‖ she starts, ―but what can one do? That is the playing field. One who does not play the game and does not understand the rules, remains outside the game and allows others the power to set the agenda and provide the picture. Presence in the media is therefore crucial on the daily practical and ideological levels.‖ Livne defines the struggle in the media as ―a war over opportunities‖. The goal: to seize opportunities and breakthrough. ―All the left-wing media people – the Israelhaters and Arab-lovers – become objective when it comes to work. We have checked the issue. If a program editor looks for a doctor for a morning program, he will contact a Jewish doctor because when an Arab doctor appears he is immediately associated with his minority group, which gives rise to a sense of threat. In most cases, it does not matter what topic you have come to discuss, you will be treated as an Arab. You have to demand that you be treated as professionals, not to ignore the Arab association, but to refer to the main topic for which you were invited to discuss in the program.‖ After that, the two Arabs on the panel speak, and they are not as optimistic and friendly as their Jewish colleagues. They have experienced discrimination and disappointment and have difficulty seeing the workshop as a big step on the way to equality of opportunity and media representation. Jaafar Farah from the Musawa Center, for example, understood a long time ago that it is not enough to smile and laugh at yourself. From his point of view, this is a fight against a well-oiled system of Jewish journalists and speakers. The Arab sector, he says, has not yet begun to formulate the most basic tools in the fight – which is not at all taking place in the representation arena but in the prism of economic viability. ―Who funds Reshet and Keshet? We do,‖ says Farah. ―We are the purchasing power. We are the target population for the advertisers. We are the clients. But today they do not see us as clients. According to Farah, if Channel 2 wanted the Arab public to take part in the Israeli tribal bonfire, it would have to involve it in what is happening and give it an expression. If not, the public will hit the franchise holders below the belt – in the ratings. How? By applying pressure on commercial companies to refer advertising budgets from Channel 2 to Arab media. ―A threat of
- 5 a consumer boycott of the large companies in the economy will lead to results. Either way, we are talking here about twenty percent of the consumer public.‖ According to Farah, Arabs can be brought to vote with the remote control and, if Channel 2 losers viewers, budgets will be referred to Arab channels. It is not clear if the system actually works but Farah promises to try. If Channel 2 does not amend its ways, that is. Rinawi, a co-director of the Excellent advertising firm, sees things differently. ―We simply do not know how to behave in a modern, Western society, in which the central theme is hutzpah,‖ she says. ―One of the main lessons I learned working at the branch in Tel Aviv is that one has to come time after time and insist until they accept you. One can wait until tomorrow with equal opportunity. I understand the frustration but we have to ask ourselves what we have not done enough of in order to get in the media. The rules of the media and the spokesmanship game have to be adopted, this cry-baby tendency has to be halted – we are discriminated against. For fifty years we are in the habit of saying the same things, and it is not work ing. Let us find another strategy.‖ The discussion takes place amicably. The serious issues remain in the news department. When the word ―Hamas‖ is thrown out, no-one gets excited. The biggest threat that emerges during the workshop is serious criticis m from David Gilboa about the body language of the Arabs on Israeli television. In a deep voice and frozen expression, he gives the participants a workshop on facing a camera, gives out tips for doing a media spin, teaches how to make inviting body moveme nts. The atmosphere is pleasant. At the end of the panel session, someone dares raise a difficult issue: ―I feel like a foreigner, using nice language to try and conceal, to belong. Yet on the hard issues there is a decision from higher-up, from Keshet and Reshet, that does not allow me to cross the glass ceiling. Sometimes there are barbed corners which are problematic and we have to give them expression.‖
FEAR AND RACISM Leon summarizes the panel discussion. ―When playing basketball, one does not ki ck the ball. One has to know the rules of the game.‖ Leon wins on points, where possible. He knows well that no-one in Keshet really wanted him there. He is there because the National Communications Authority demanded in the tender that every franchise-holder have someone in charge of multiculturalism. The main success he has chalked up so far is the Arab participants in the reality show. Now there is an idea of doing the ―Ima machlifa‖ (reality show of parental exchange) program with a Jewish woman and an Arab woman who will exchange homes and families. ―A documentary series,‖ claims Leon. A visit to the show’s website clearly exposes Israeli racism by reading some of the over 400 online talk-backs. ―Here, too, they are bringing us Arabs to make a mess of things?!‖ asks a person who signs as ―Non viewer of the series‖. Another writes: ―Having watched the previous season and seen that Jewish mothers hardly find themselves in Jewish homes and things did not work out with the family from the moment they started with the family change, I
- 6 suggest not mixing religions, mainly not with Arabs. This is not because of racism. It is dangerous. It is an explosive mix on a live broadcast.‖ And also this: ―What’s the connection now with Arabs?! What? May all the Arabs be strangled and burned!!! What is this nonsense? I am not watching the program. What is this? Arabs on this television – that really is a hutzpah. As though we need these Arabs now?!‖ Tom outdid others, claiming: ―So the Arabs are also t aking control of the television?‖ Really, do they? Research conducted by the Second Authority in 2005 under the heading ―Those absent and those present at peak viewing times‖ reveals that the representation of the Arab public at Israeli prime time comes t o about two percent of total representation, while the Arabs constitute twenty percent of the Israeli population. A television minority. And that is not everything, for those two percent are not involved in entertainment and leisure programs but, as anti cipated, in topical and news programs, where they only reinforce their one-dimensional stereotype. The main topics in which the Arabs are shown are the security forces (45 percent) and Israeli – Palestinian conflict (35 percent), the Arab – Jewish conflict in Israel (25 percent) and crime and violence (thirty percent). On matters of business, trade and industry, economics, poverty and hardship, labor relations and professional unions, Arabs do not appear at all, and we have not yet mentioned health, home design and alternative medicine. And so? Channels 2 and 10 have no ideology? Actually they do. Only they do not break it down into sections and a clear agenda. It is well stamped in the smiles of the presenters and in the subtexts of the editors. A commercial, capitalist ideology. The commercial channels simply ignore anything that could hurt their revenues. So long as the ratings are going up, consumerism pays and the advertisers have work, business continues to move along. The Arabs are not paying for the controlling ideology. They do not put the ratings up but participate in confrontations, speak about humous or make provocations on the roads of the north. Many bad Arabs are sexier than pleasant, educated Arabs.
THE STICK AND THE CARROT But Leon is optimistic. ―Tel Aviv culture has begun to bore Channel 2,‖ he says this week. ―Variety is an interest of the Channel no less than it is an interest of mine.‖ Do you really believe that the study day you have arranged will bring a turnaround? Is this not just another fig leaf? ―Whoever expects a radical turnaround will perceive all the attempts as a fig leaf. I am here in order to create discussion, to motivate a gradual revolution. By exchanging an Arab mother for a Jewish mother, we shook the fou ndations of Israeli society. It is not bad for me that I am bringing all the racists out of their lairs. It is important for the Jewish public to understand the problems that are lying under the surface.‖
- 7 That is not enough. Reality programs do not open a window on the Arab sector but again show it as a minority in confrontation. ―One cannot force the commercial bodies to be non-commercial. One can seduce them with commercial considerations, with an understanding that the periphery is worthwhile for them.
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE ARAB PUBLIC AT ISRAELI PRIME TIME COMES TO TWO PERCENT, WHILE THE ARABS CONSTITUTE TWENTY PERCENT OF THE ISRAELI POPULATION. A TELEVISION MINORITY. THE MAIN TOPICS IN WHICH THE ARABS ARE SHOWN ARE THE SECURITY FORCES, THE ARAB – JEWISH CONFLICT, CRIME AND VIOLENCE (THIRTY PERCENT). ON MATTERS OF BUSINESS, SOCIETY, HEALTH AND SO ON, ARABS DO NOT APPEAR AT ALL
Anyone who wants to make a commercial body change its ways has to speak to it in commercial terms. The Second Authority is trying to use ―stick‖ regulation when what is required here is ―carrot‖ regulation. We need a basket of incentives that will cause the franchise-holders to invest. If the Second Authority credits the franchise holders with bonuses for multicultural productions or for the involvement of Arabs in the work, then the franchise-holders will invest because it will be worth their while. Threats and applying pressure do not work.‖ Farah also has complaints about the Authority. According to him, since Nurit Dabush became the chairperson she has done nothing to promote the subject. The previous chairman, Motti Shakler, set up a multicultural team to formulate a package of benefits for franchise-holders for introducing multiculturalism. Dabush arrived and the subject was frozen. In practice, the franchise -holders do not meet their commitments and Dabush does not take responsibility. Dabush views matters differently. ―I raised the banner of the Arab sector on television,‖ she claims in response. ―It was my decision that the Council and I should devote 35 percent of our time to the subject, and this can be seen on the screen. The screen does not lie. The axiom that Arabs are equal to a decline in the ratings has been broken, thanks to us. Since I took up my position, I have taken a series of actions never taken before – I found for the franchise-holders manpower to be paid salaries from the Jewish-Arab Economic Forum, I appointed Arab lectors, I traveled to Rahat and helped them start a communications course and I promised that, for every Sheqel they put into a production, I would put in two Sheqels. Jaafer
- 8 Farah heads an organization whose purpose is to perpetuate the discrimination of the Arab sector. The raison d’etre of the organization is for the re to be discrimination. Instead of talking nonsense, let him act rather than attack. I am sorry about Udi Leon who sees fit to deal with such a significant issue through negative talk. He does things from the depth of his heart, but that is not the way. He can have an Arab mother on ―Ima machlifa‖ and put out an Arab satirical program (the new series of Said Qashua which has recently been approved – A.M.) only because I placed the matter at the top of the order of priorities and am giving him a tail wi nd. The facts point to a turnabout in the review of the Arab sector on television. I would suggest not speaking any more in hollow slogans but working for results. The subject is important to me and to Israeli society at a value level.‖ DARK AND BLACK At the end of the day, the participants tried to implement something of what they had learned and conducted television interviews. Some of them even managed a relaxed and matter-of-fact appearance while others fell into clichés. Leon promised to look at the cassettes and push those suitable to the various programs. Will we indeed be seeing them on our screens? An excellent question. On the way out, I ask a number of people about their feeling. ―Like a step -daughter no-one wants to see,‖ says Tagrid Shavita, a lawyer from Tira, but Prof. Riad Agbariyeh of Ben-Gurion University is talking a new language: ―Being interviewed is a profession. Many interviewees go to the media and cause damage. They present the problem rather than a solution and blame the viewer. All is dark, everything is black. Instead of raising questions, they bring dislike on themselves and on the sector. Anyone wanting to swim has to learn how to swim.‖