Mr. Bush Goes to Jerusalem – and Ramallah, too

The news coming out of Jerusalem is grim. As of tomorrow, entire swathes of the downtown area will be completely closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The main highway linking the airport to the capital will be locked down for several hours. Hundreds of miserable foreign correspondents are being forced to rise at the crack of dawn, in order to stand around for hours in the pouring rain and freezing wind while watching George W. Bush as he shakes hands, smiles, waves, and gives speeches.

Oh, the horror. I am so, so grateful that I live in Tel Aviv and don’t do instant news.

I’m afraid that GWB’s visit ranks right up there with the Annapolis Conference on the huge yawn scale, as far as the Israeli (wo)man on the fabled street is concerned. Apathy? Indifference? Nah. That would imply awareness and a conscious decision to turn away. I don’t know anyone who’s even mentioned the presidential visit. If I weren’t obliged to read four newspapers per day and watch two hours of TV news, the big event would barely graze my consciousness. I wish I could explain how and why we are able to love and enjoy life, despite a pervasive feeling of utter hopelessness and helplessness regarding the political situation.

But what’s all this got to do with CNN?

Well. The Israeli cable television service HOT stopped broadcasting CNN a couple of months ago, due to what HOT described (if I remember correctly) as a breakdown in contract renewal negotiations. Freely translated, that basically means that HOT told CNN they wanted a discount in licensing fees, CNN said “No way! Why should we give you a discount? We’re one of the most important 24-hour news services in the world! So take it or leave it,” and HOT said “Fine, we’ll leave it. We’re not going to let CNN make friers out of us. We’ll just broadcast FOX instead.”

As usual, consumer protests had absolutely no effect. Why’s that, you ask? Well, two reasons: 1) the number of Israelis who regularly watch foreign news broadcasts is quite low, so the relatively few HOT subscribers who might cancel their subscription due to the absence of CNN do not present a financial threat; and 2) getting a divorce from one’s cable provider is an unbelievable hassle in this country – especially if your cable provider is also your Internet service provider. Who wants to spend ages on the phone with customer service, followed by hours of waiting around for technicians? And besides, HOT cable has the exclusive rights to my favourite Israeli TV shows. Bah.

According to an item published in yesterday’s Maariv newspaper, the manager of the King David Hotel, which subscribes to HOT, realized that he could not properly accommodate the president of the United States of America if there were no access to CNN on the television in his suite. So the King David reached a special agreement with HOT, whereby the latter would provide access to CNN exclusively to the hotel’s presidential suite, for the duration of GWB’s stay. None of the other guests will benefit from this little agreement; and HOT will, of course, terminate CNN broadcasts as soon as the prez goes home.

I don’t think I can adequately describe how much this little story irritates me. Meanwhile, since everything about FOX – from its Ken and Barbie anchors to its outrageously provincial, reactionary news coverage, to its cartoon-like color scheme – just grates on my nerves, I shall have to continue watching the BBC World Service for my international news coverage. With any luck, someone at HOT or CNN will blink soon.

I miss ~~John~~ Jon Stewart, dammit.

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19 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Actually, who you miss are Jon Stewart’s writers

And FNC rules!

1. Arielle
on January 9th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Sincere regrets that Mr. Siach will cause Israeli roads to become impassable. This is signature W — cutting off entree to public resources for too many who lack, for instance, privileges of private access to an otherwise unavailable cable company. One thing puzzles me; I thought Fox was W’s brand, which perhaps his handlers forgot to tell the King David manager. With presidential primary elections in several USA states now going on, the excitement of change is palpable. Not a nanosecond too soon.

2. tamar
on January 9th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Jon Stewart is back. I didn’t watch the second show tonight, but I saw his and Colbert’s 2008 premieres yesterday.
By the way, are you still planning a NY trip? I obviously want to plan around the traffic jams your visit will cause in Manhattan.

3. DL
on January 9th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Miss Jon? Really? But that’s what the intarweb‘s for!
Can’t help you with the general lack of CNN though.

4. M.Bee
on January 9th, 2008 at 7:49 am
No “H” in Jon Stewart. You goy-ified him!

5. Benji
on January 9th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Actually, viewer protests can work. When HOT threatened to stop transmitting BBC Prime, there was a massive campaign orchestrated primarily by various English-speaking organizations. HOT received so many complaints that they reversed their decision. I’m not sure why a similar campaign wasn’t undertaken with regard to CNN, but I couldn’t agree with you more about FOX, which my husband has referred to as the “pretend” news network.

6. Liza R
on January 9th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
haha

i have a great story on HOT’s VIP service.. there is a lot that HOT is willing to do when they decide its worthwhile..

remind me to tell you next time we catch up..

7. lirun
on January 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Lisa, habibti, I feel your pain. As for the frier phenomenon, the link should probably be pointing here.

8. Noam Smooha
on January 9th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I always took Bush as a Fox News man.

Did you catch Fox News a fwe weeks ago when they discussed Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s decision to return to the air. The caption on the screen was, “Attacking the ‘Right’ more important to the ‘Left’ than honoring picket line”

9. DL
on January 9th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Ha – that is funny, especially as (as someone else mentioned upthread) the Bush team watches Fox – just in case they were to hear disention in the rank.

Can’t have some reality seeping in.

10. lisoosh
on January 10th, 2008 at 12:26 am
You have good taste Lisa, Fox is disgusting and Jon Stewart is awesome! Thank God he is back!

Am really sorry you have to endure our “great” president, but at least he is out of our hair for the time being. We really need a break!

11. Halla
on January 10th, 2008 at 8:31 am
BBC World Service has better coverage of international news than CNN. CNN tends to spend about 5 minutes on important national/international news and then the remaining 25 minutes of the news cycle on things like “Eating more tomatoes cures cancer” with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and “Dish towels: Dangerous Death-causing Devices.” That being said, it’s too bad it’s not carried on HOT anyway and too bad that it wouldn’t be watched by Bush if it were.

I once was in an airplane forced to sit on the tarmac in London for an hour and a half while Air Force One landed and taxied. They wouldn’t let any air traffic take off or land until that plane was stopped and unloaded.

12. Elianah
on January 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am
If George W. can bring back CNN from the dead on HOT, then I’ll vote for him even if he is a lame duck president whose only purpose in coming over here at this time in his presidency was to make Israel continue to look bad on CNN. O_o

13. Jennifer
on January 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
CNN is actually transmitting free on Amos1 satellite, all you need is a satellite dish (250 shekels) and a receiver (300 she ks). You can also watch France24, Aljazeera English and many more free of charge. Given the fact that you are a jurnalist, I think that you should know about this alternative you have. (not really “alternative”, you can keep HOT, and add a dish…)

14. Andrey
on January 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Andrey, thank you for the advice. I shall buy a satellite dish, then.

15. lisagoldman
on January 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Gah. I meant to link to this site on the intarweb (and not my own photos). My copy/paste skillz have gone down the toilet.

16. M.Bee
on January 12th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Also, most irritating argument for HOT’s decision to pull CNN from their channel lineup: “CNN is anti-Israel.”

17. M.Bee
on January 12th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Hmm. I’d think Bushy would prefer Fox..

18. Corinne
on January 12th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
This is not the first story I’ve heard about HOT making special accommodations for American VIPs. Apparently they have even agreed to change programming for some people…

19. Amos
on January 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm