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Published on 11/25/1996 All articles from this issue

CBS correspondent shares Middle East expertise

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By Clyde Noel / Town Crier Staff Writer

The voice is still familiar if you listened to radio in the 1970s. Bruno Wassertheil served as chief radio correspondent for CBS News in Israel during that time and broadcast more than 20,000 network newscasts from Israel.

While on assignment there, he came into frequent contact with most of the main players on Israel's political and military scenes.

After a fact-finding trip to Israel this year, Wassertheil asked the Morning Forum of Los Altos last week, "Is the Mideast rushing headlong toward peace or disaster?"

With Israelis and Palestinians sliding into war, Bill Clinton asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Yasir Arafat to come to Washington. However, nothing was resolved last month because Israel's new government will not be persuaded to acknowledge the underlying deal done by its predecessor - the return of occupied land in exchange for peace, Wassertheil said.

"Yasir Arafat is the way to go," he said. "There is nobody else to deal with since he founded the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). He has 30 years of history and is the central figure in the area."

When people report news from Israel, what is the source? No one speaks for Israel, Wassertheil said, so advises listeners to be careful what the source is and how it might slant the news.

"The best reliable source today is Peter Jennings," Wassertheil said. "But look at the news announcers' body language as they talk. Who gets the hardball questions and who gets the softball questions?" asked Wassertheil. No one asks King Hussein any tough questions because he has 'King' in front of his name. Larry King asks the softball questions when it concerns Israel.

"With difficulty, the crisis is being sorted out, and that includes the wretched tunnel whose opening set off the Palestinian protests. The tunnel is a trivial issue that developed into a symbol of Israeli arrogance toward Muslim and Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem," Wassertheil said.

May 31, 1999, is the day when all negotiations between Israel and Palestine are to be completed, Wassertheil said.

In another movement toward a peace process, the U.S. Congress voted to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Avid to Jerusalem.

Wassertheil said down through the years, the United States has generally gone along with Israel, but the national interest of the United States is usually the determining factor. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and U.S. support for Israel is $2 billion in aid each year, but this should go down to zero within the next decade.

Wassertheil, who lives in Palo Alto, is now writing and lecturing about Israel and the Middle East. He will teach a course on Israel this winter in the UC Berkeley - San Francisco extension.