InDepth

Britain was so concerned with Nazi inroads into the Arab world in 1938, the eve of World War II, that it issued the infamous White Paper limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, contributing to a locking of Jews into a Europe that was being overrun by Hitler.

A hundred and thirty four. As in 134. Not submissions - those numbered close to a thousand (951 when we stopped the count, with more still coming) - but names. It quickly became obvious that the Monitor had some serious whittling down to do if this Media Friends List was going to work at all.

Overall, the survey found that anti-Semitism has increased.

If the Oslo carnage in Israel continues at its current pace, the number of Israelis murdered since the signing of the Rabin-Arafat 'Peace Accord' in 1993 soon will be larger - when measured as proportional to population size - than the total losses by the United States in the Vietnam War.

The State of Israel is beset by what conventional wisdom considers a huge demographic problem.

If indeed this cold-blooded murder was not motivated by unwarranted hatred, then David was the random victim of soul-less, unfeeling deviants, with no shred of empathy or human compassion.

This week the Monitor concludes its extended look at the anti-Israel proclivities of "60 Minutes" stalwart Mike Wallace. As we've noted in our earlier installments, Wallace has always displayed a palpable ambivalence - some would say that's too charitable a word - when dealing with Jewish issues, never more so than when he downplayed the plight of Soviet Jewry in the 1980's and Syrian Jewry in the 1970's.

But if Arafat is not responsible for all those bombings and killings since 1993, on what grounds could we try him?

I guess the two geniuses were off the planet last September when four passenger jets were hijacked, and three of the four were rammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon buildings.

When their religious faith weakens, so does their moral strictness.

"You and your friends won't like what you'll see on my program in a couple of weeks," Mike Wallace told an acquaintance in Jerusalem in November 1990, referring to a forthcoming "60 Minutes" report on the Temple Mount riot staged by Palestinians earlier that fall.

When I was a lad we used to suffer from the frequent visits of missionaries who often canvassed our neighborhood, presumably because of the large number of Jewish families whose souls could be saved there.

As the Monitor reported last month, veteran "60 Minutes" hatchet man Mike Wallace has, after a brief respite, resumed his familiar role as one of the media's most consistent Jewish critics of Israel. During a number of interviews in recent months Wallace seemed to go out of his way to inject an anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian perspective into the conversation, most notably during a May 22 chat with Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

Rumors were rife about Israeli soldiers hurriedly burying bodies - getting rid of the evidence of their foul deeds, and that Israeli soldiers were using 'Palestinian' children as human shields.

For the best indication that President Bush's June 24 White House speech indeed amounted to what several Israeli officials described as the most pro-Israel statement ever made by a sitting U.S. president, one need look no further than the reactions it stirred in the American punditocracy.

One of the problems with multi-part columns is that a breaking story or timely development can wreak havoc on any semblance of an orderly schedule. Such is the case with the conclusion of a critical look at Mike Wallace, the first part of which appeared here two weeks ago.

The Monitor will return next week to the subject of veteran Israel-basher Mike Wallace. This week, though, with yet another horrific suicide bombing in Jerusalem, it seemed more relevant to focus on the fanatical hatred inculcated in Palestinian young people by their elders.

Readers will recall that a few months back the Monitor had words of uncharacteristic praise for Mike Wallace, who had just conducted an interview with Yasir Arafat that was far more skeptical than the fawning media treatment usually accorded the Palestinian leader.

This year we take a different tack: As per the suggestions of a number of readers, the Monitor for the next few weeks will be compiling a "Friends List" of pro-Israel media people. The list and its inevitable follow-ups will be published in July.

Believe me, if you dare, when I tell you that these Christian Zionists are the most sincere supporters of Israel I've ever met. Bar none.

Our Own Worst EnemyMy mother works in accounts receivables for an auto-parts company in Tel Aviv. Recently, one of the company's Arab customers from...

Demonstrating the bias of the Mideast reporting of the New York Times is hardly as attention-grabbing these days as when The Jewish Press began doing so several years ago. Just about everyone has now gotten "with the program". Yet, it is important, despite various calls for boycotts and even some grudging acknowledgment by The Times that there is a problem, not to allow the issue to fade.

As The Jewish Press reported last week, a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sitting in Manhattan has thrown out provisions of New York's Agricultural and Markets Law which since 1915 has prohibited the fraudulent selling of food as kosher.

We are saddened by some assertions made by Agudath Israel of America spokesman Rabbi Shafran in last week's Forward newspaper. We have, until now, avoided any editorializing on the continuing and animated exchange of opinion that has appeared for several weeks in our Letters To The Editor section, preferring to let our readers explore the issue of Agudath Israel's non-participation in the recent Washington rally in support of Israel. And we will not now address the controversy. However we cannot leave unremarked some of Rabbi Shafran's comments.

Democrats and their allies in the media who thought they could use those pre-Sept. 11 intelligence reports and FBI memos to diminish President Bush's standing with the American people were in full retreat this week, as a slew of polls gave Bush continued high marks, both for his overall job performance and his handling of the war on terror.

Hold the presses for an unusual burst of candor from Newsweek assistant managing Editor Evan Thomas. "The incredible alarm everybody has about how Bush should have known - all of that is baloney," Thomas acknowledged last weekend on the panel discussion program "Inside Washington."

The Monitor is still trying to catch up with some of the more striking examples of media bias in the coverage of Israel's recent anti-terrorist operations in the Palestinian areas. Topping this week's list is the insufferable Ted Koppel and his separate interviews with Ariel Sharon and Yasir Arafat, both of which aired on the May 1 edition of ABC's "Nightline."

I thought about other soldiers in the Israeli army, an army that insisted on going from booby-trapped house to booby trapped house in the terrorist stronghold of Jenin they jokingly call a "refugee camp."

With huge funding - courtesy of the United States Europe and Israel - it has also had plenty of time and resources to prove itself.

Once again the Monitor is forced to change course and shelve some already delayed comments on media coverage of Israel's recent anti-terror military operation. We'll get back to Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel next week, but right now there can be no topic for discussion other than The New York Times and the travesty it has become.