Back to digital, Richler

Editorial

The innumerable new digital cable channels that arrived with fanfare a couple of years ago have mostly suffered from exceptionally poor subscriber numbers. Thus, we see parent networks, like CTV, pilfering some of their subsidiary digital channels for their main network, lest the programs go completely unwatched.

So last week we were treated to Daniel Richler, scion of a Canadian literary family and the face of the disappointingly subscribed-to Book Television channel, appearing on our basic cable interviewing Alan Dershowitz, who is promoting his new book, The Case for Israel.

Richler repeatedly apologized to viewers, acknowledging that he was no expert on the Mideast, a disclaimer that was superfluous in that it was entirely obvious. At the very outset, and again throughout the hour-long broadcast, Richler apologized that the interactive audience included only one Palestinian representative, others having opted not to attend the taping.

So Richler, armed with nothing but general assumptions, tried to provide the counter-arguments to Dershowitz's well-considered theses. Viewers might have got the impression that Richler, busy fellow that he is, hadn't read the book. Nor any other on the topic. Dershowitz, for his part, was faced with a choice of gently or vigorously destroying the vague anti-Israeli assumptions of Richler and his one Palestinian guest. He erred on the side of gentleness, with one exception: When the Palestinian young woman claimed to be a refugee, he snapped, "No, you're not," at which point she acknowledged that, OK, well, her grandparents were refugees, but still....

Richler had clearly hoped there would be a roomful of Palestinians and Zionists and that he could simply play ringmaster. Forced instead to play a more active role, Richler's ignorance reflected a too-common problem on the part of many Canadians: He regurgitated half-baked ideas about how unjust Israel is and how hard done by the Palestinians are. Richler suggested more than once that Dershowitz's obvious advantage came from lawyerly tricks. Facts and logic, now, are mere trickery. The young Palestinian non-refugee's unintellectual whining, on the other hand, passes for fair comment.

Dershowitz is probably used to debating ill-equipped minds. Still, he deserved better than this. So did Israel. So did the viewers. Richler should return to digital.

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