Israel's 'Mr. TV' Gets Political

TV Anchor Delivers Angry Indictment Against Israeli Occupation

(AP) 
He said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he didn't believe that he had become more dovish - but Israelis had become more hawkish.

"We have to go through a mental revolution," Yavin said. "The Palestinians are a people and we have to share this land ... We have to wake up from our dream."

In his documentary, Yavin repeatedly shows Palestinians suffering at the hands of arrogant settlers and soldiers. In one scene, he filmed a crowded Israeli army roadblock, showing sick women and crying children waiting in the hot sun for hours.

Israel set up the roadblocks at the outbreak of the current round of fighting in 2000, saying they were needed to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen from reaching Israel.

At one point, Yavin shifted the camera toward the Israeli soldiers to ask why they weren't letting people through. "I look for danger in these people and I can't find it," Yavin said in the film.

In another scene, settlers chased Palestinian olive pickers out of an orchard, accusing them of planning terror attacks. The scene ended with an elderly Palestinian woman asking: "Is it forbidden for us to pick olives? Isn't it a sin not to let us pick?"

Settlers were outraged over the documentary, which was broadcast by the private Channel Two, rather than by Yavin's station, Israel TV. Israel TV declined to air the documentary, Yavin said, but he claimed the decision was not politically motivated. Fewer than a dozen settlers held a demonstration outside the offices of Israel's
Broadcasting Authority, which oversees Israel TV.

A leader of the Settlers' Council, Bentsi Lieberman, demanded Yavin's dismissal in a letter to the authority. "It is unacceptable that Haim Yavin will continue to anchor the news of the national station that professes to be objective," Lieberman wrote.

Authority chairman Uri Porat said Yavin would not be fired since he had not violated his contract.