The report “Markus Lanz im Heiligen Land” was a one-sided and incomplete piece. We wrote to Mr Lanz and to the editorial team:
30.09.2017
Dear Mr Lanz,
I have watched your report on your visit to the Holy Land. Technically and dramaturgically it was very well made, but in terms of its message it was massively skewed. Even if this may be owed to the wish to create a slightly sentimental, pre-Christmas mood, it was a reach into the props box that was hostile to the truth.
The pattern in the report was repeatedly the same: the images and the recorded voices conveyed the “negative message”, while a voice-over added a somewhat qualifying remark (for example, that the dead whose pictures are displayed on posters were in some cases indeed suicide bombers).
It was Father Nikodemus who had to touch briefly on the enormous solidarity that the monastery of Tabgha received from the Jewish communities. The trials of the perpetrators, the funding of the reconstruction and the vigorous condemnation of the attack by the entire Israeli government went unmentioned.
The State of Israel and, apart from irrelevant exceptions, society as a whole stand unequivocally against such terror! The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, promotes and celebrates it. That would have belonged in your report to complete the picture!
Furthermore, Nikodemus had to put right the statement by the fear-stricken dhimmi cleric of the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza that Gaza was the place in the world where Christians and Muslims lived together best. Transparent nonsense. The number of Christians there is declining, whereas in Israel – the only country in the Middle East where this is the case – it remains roughly stable.
I should be glad to invite you to travel with me through Israel and the West Bank for a few days. And we could gladly film an emotive report there too, one that conveys, alongside the many problems that undoubtedly exist, the positive energy of the Holy Land that can be felt every day. A place where the history of humanity, religion and culture can literally be “grasped and taken in” with a filled pita in one’s hand.
With best wishes for the New Year,
Dr Elio Adler
Founder of WerteInitiative. jüdisch-deutsche Positionen
26.02.2018
Dear Dr Adler,
I must sincerely apologise to you for the fact that you evidently received no reply from us to your first letter. That should not happen, and can only be explained (though not excused) by the large volume of viewers’ post that had accumulated here after the holidays: it seems that the odd letter went astray.
Many thanks, then, for your second attempt with your email of 25.02.18, which I am glad to answer as the editor responsible.
You engage in detail and with well-founded arguments with the points that appear to you to convey an unbalanced picture of the situation in the Holy Land. Everything you say is factually, historically and humanly correct – and shows once again how many-layered and complex the problems in the region are.
Whereas in the previous year we had expressly taken care always to let the other side have its say in our documentary, this year the alternative view of things may have received rather short shrift, particularly on the subject of the “ecological catastrophe”. The “Palestinian perspective” you criticise may in some places simply have crept in because of the filming locations and the atmosphere and circumstances there.
Balance in the presentation was certainly the aim of all of us (and Father Nikodemus was in fact a knowledgeable guarantor of it) – your well-founded criticism makes clear that we evidently did not succeed in every respect.
Thank you for making us still more aware of this – and perhaps there will be an opportunity for a “filled pita” enjoyed together, should we film a further instalment of our “Markus Lanz im Heiligen Land” documentaries.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Schneider
