Dear Editor
Dear Editor Mideast Footnote The "American peace initiative" proclaimed by President Reagan to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict represents rather less than the "fresh start" that he...
...Eyewitness, the late Paddy Chayefsky's classic Network, For Your Eyes Only, Brubaker, Atlantic City, and Neil Simon's Only When I Laugh????without censorship or commercials...
...It can obscure the fact that good alternative television is possible...
...Again, all of this is offered sans censoring or commercial interruptions...
...and TJ officials seek views of US on question of Palestine settlement, you are authorized to state US approval of reasonable attitude so far shown by TJ and to express US hope that TJ, as well as other Arab States, will find way of entering armistice and peace negotiations with Israelis...
...The Powers That Be ("Anecdotes from the Press Club Bar," NL, May21,1979), 1 thought that wasaprelty sleazy piece of writing...
...Bronx, N.Y...
...Marvin Kitman's sneerquake concerning cable television comes dangerously close lo matching it...
...It is certainly true that HBO runs films more than twice a week...
...Why, one wonders, Kitman's melange of juvenile cheap shots and hollow wise-guyisms...
...His "major complaint about cable" is "the dearth of original programing...
...On January 3, 1949, Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett sent a top-secret telegram to Wells Stabler, vice consul in Jerusalem (then detailed to Amman), that declared: "Dept...
...Dear Editor Mideast Footnote The "American peace initiative" proclaimed by President Reagan to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict represents rather less than the "fresh start" that he suggests...
...believes that most satisfactory solution disposition greater part Arab Palestine would be incorporation in Transjordan...
...If that is the case, it calls to mind former Chicago sportscaster Mike Leiderman's 1980 assertion about TV sportscasting: "What they Icer-tain news directors and station managers] want is somebody who'll be a clown...
...He claims that "original programing is cable's Achilles' heel and toe and thigh bone...
...For those of us who treasure a film, it is a terrific opportunity to savor a favorite again...
...He contends that "there is less to the video revolution than meets the eye" and that the new field is "all hype...
...As one who has had the pleasure of being an HBO subscriber for around three years, lei me say thai Kit-man's putdown is meretricious crap????a cooler-headed phrase simply would not be sufficient...
...He apparently hasn't given HBO real attention...
...The supposed new plan is thus not a bold, fresh approach to the Arab-Israeli War, now in its 35th year...
...You will know best how to do this without giving impression US supporting TJ against Arab League and without involving US in Arab politics...
...a battle of press releases...
...Surely we should give it a chance to really develop before we hack away at it...
...By doing so, it allowed us to enjoy one of our cleverest and most incisive comic talents offering his unique and very funny observations on everyday life...
...Is that really so bad, though...
...Take his words on Home Box Office, for example...
...In fact, it puts forward a view favored at the State Department 33 years ago...
...Since the beginning of the year alone HBO's presentations have included: Clint Eastwood's Escape from Atcatraz, Joseph Wambaugh's The Black Marble, All Night Long, Fame, Lady Sings Ihe Blues, Melvin and Howard...
...Pittsburgh, Penn...
...If King [Abdullah, King Hussein's grandfather...
...This demand has????with the singular exception of Egypt????encouraged Arab rejectionism ever since the founding of the Jewish State, and it will continue to do so...
...The service has given us other comic luminaries like Richard Pryor and Lily Tomlin, too, not to mention concerts...
...When The New Leader printed Reuven Frank's shallow and patronizing dismissal of David Halber-slam's eloquent, eye-opening media journal...
...You are also authorized, if queried re US views on disposition Arab Palestine, to state that US believes logical outcome negotiations between TJ and Israelis would be incorporation greater part Arab Palestine in TJ...
...The telegram concluded with the following paragraph: "To sum up, US would like to see TJ iTransjor-dan) negotiate armistice and final peace with Israelis, and believes most of Arab Palestine could be incorporated in Transjordan as outcome such negotiations...
...They want somebody who'll be controversial...
...Duane Brooks...
...Or perhaps after his years of exposure to television's depressingly high mediocrity quotient, Kitman has come to believe that no part of it is worthy of serious, meaningful criticism...
...But it is rather new and still evolving...
...It may indeed be true that cable television, in its current state, is hardly bursting with innovative programing...
...Quite the contrary, the President's speech represented only the latest manifestation of the Arabist demand that Israel, as the price of its existence, accept Arab belligerence on Arab terms...
...Perhaps in constructing such a thoroughly negative piece he was seeking Brownie points for being a provocative and controversial critic...
...Well, anybody can be controversial just by saying something stupid...
...Davtd R. Zukerman Kitman Marvin Kitman's comments on cable television ("Cable Hopping," NL, June 28) are crudeand utterly asinine...
...Cable, after all, does have the potential for giving us an alternative to the unimaginative, useless junk the networks serve up...
...To dump cold water, as Kit-man does, is not to understand what this kind of viewing really is...
...Yes, HBO showed George Carlin performing his notorious "seven dirty words" routine...
...However, US cannot become involved in inter-Arab politics...
...this giddy hatchet job is appalling coming from someone who has, in the past, been unhesitating in his assertions of how inferior regular TV is...
...Multiple showings also allow one to see a film at a convenient time...
...Kitman says that "Of course, what HBO really means culturally is thai there is now a lot of cussing in our house," thus vehemently oversimplifying the issue...
...Reagan's call for an association of the West Bank and Gaza with Jordan is little more than an updating of the views expressed by Lovett...
...This is very understandable (it was the Washington Post's marvelously acidulous TV critic, Tom Shales, who once declared, "Television is more fun than anything else to kick around?except maybe Nixon"), but such a view can easily lead to television criticism becoming a refuge for second-raters and the intellectually and emotionally lazy...
...Will the Reagan Administration pressure the rejectionists to make peace with Israel...
...He brands H BO the "home of recent films that were blasted by ihe critics," and declares "I didn't know there were so many movies I never intended to see until 1 bought t his service...
...One might as well imagine the United Nations rescinding the General Assembly's invidious "Zionism-is-racism" resolution, or electing Israel to the Security Council...
Vol. 65 • October 1982 • No. 18
