Middle East news reports are not welcomed by all

As debate continues over a Middle Eastern news program shown on Newton's public access television channel, no one is more surprised by the controversy than the man who started it.

In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, Arthur S. Obermayer was looking for news outlets that would allow him to better understand what was going on in the Middle East. He was on vacation in Mexico when the conflict broke out and was struck by how different the war coverage there was from what was being shown in the United States.

Obermayer had read that the Al Jazeera television network had an English-language website, but when he tried to access it, the site had been hacked and replaced with an image of an American flag. He suspected he wouldn't necessarily have liked what he found on the site, but having it blotted out disturbed him more.

''I think having these things come out in the open and discussing them is really the way to deal with them," Obermayer said. ''A lot of things that are covered on Arab TV, I'm very concerned about them, but they're there, they're real."

From friends, he learned about a show called ''Mosaic," a half-hour compilation of news broadcasts from state-controlled and independent Middle Eastern television networks. After seeing it in New York, he approached officials at NewTV, Newton's public access television station, about airing the program.

The program has sparked an outcry, because some people criticize it as anti-Semitic and terrorist propaganda while others defend it as important in giving a broader perspective on how other countries see the United States. Obermayer, who is Jewish and 72 years old, said that while he understands the concern over anti-Semitism, the point is to let people watch the broadcasts and make up their own minds.

''We have a tendency to be very insular and look at things our way, and not realize the rest of world doesn't view things the way we do," Obermayer said. ''And that's very dangerous."

Last week, as many people got their first look at ''Mosaic," Obermayer was in Germany. He had traveled to Berlin to present an award bearing his name, which is given yearly to Germans who work to preserve Jewish culture and history in their local communities. He runs a foundation out of his West Newton home office that gives the awards.

Obermayer, who is married and has three grown children, has lived in the area for almost 40 years, since coming to Boston from his native Philadelphia to earn a doctorate in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Obermayer is well-known in Newton for a cause he took up 20 years ago when he tried to keep the city from cutting down a tree in front of his house. The tree was among a number to be cleared to widen the road. After having once successfully turned away the man sent by the city to remove the tree, Obermayer took drastic action when the man returned.

He jumped into the cherry picker the man was standing in and jiggled the gears so the truck was shaking and the man had to come down. Obermayer was arrested a short time later on charges including assault with a dangerous weapon -- the cherry picker.

On the steps of City Hall, he presented a petition signed by Newton residents as well as local and state legislators asking the city to spare the tree. He also took the case to court and won a temporary restraining order. The tree had been damaged in the second attempt to cut it down and Obermayer went so far as to take out an insurance policy that would protect anyone who might be injured if the tree fell. But despite extensive legal wrangling, the tree was ultimately cut down.

In addition to the awards he gives out, Obermayer also produces an e-mail newsletter called ''American Editorial Review," a compilation of editorials related to Israel taken from the largest newspapers in the United States. He began sending it out 15 years ago and says it's a way to help Israelis see how others see them. In the early 1990s, he got a letter from former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin asking for a back issue, and Rabin was on the mailing list until he was assassinated in 1995.

Michael Feldberg, executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, is writing a history of Obermayer's family. The book traces the history of Obermayer's Jewish ancestors in Germany and highlights his family's involvement in national and Philadelphia-based educational and social service organizations. He describes Obermayer as thoughtful and deliberate and said he wouldn't have proposed that NewTV show ''Mosaic" just to stir up tensions.

''He's always erring on the side of public participation in the civic decision-making process, which is very different from saying, 'I just want my view heard and not yours,' " said Feldberg.

''Mosaic" airs weekly on NewTV, which is available in approximately 20,000 Newton homes that get cable television through RCN and Comcast, according to executive director Paul Berg. He said that while the volume of e-mails and phone calls he's gotten about the program has decreased, emotion still runs high over the station's decision to run the show.

NewTV is funded primarily through fees from RCN and Comcast and was formed through a 1991 licensing agreement with the city. Among some critics of ''Mosaic," there's talk of asking the city to intervene in some way or of filing a lawsuit against the station.

Charles Jacobs, however, dismisses the show as ''Hezbollah TV" and likens broadcasting it in a city with a sizable Jewish population to a public access channel in Roxbury airing a show featuring white supremacist David Duke. Jacobs heads the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group.

''That's like bringing the KKK into Newton. It's not diversity, it's hate speech, " said Jacobs, who also heads the David Project, which states its goal as promoting a ''fair and honest" portrayal of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ''Newton is a progressive city. This will not bring us more truth, as the proponents think, about the Islamic world, but less truth."

''Mosaic" is produced by San Rafael, Calif.-based Link TV, which says the show is available in 20 million homes with satellite hookups. The show's producers are David Michaelis, an Israeli Jew, and Jamal Dajani, a Palestinian American. Working with a staff of six, most of whom speak English, Arabic, and Hebrew, the team monitors 30 different networks in 16 countries, including Israel, Iran, and Jordan, as well as broadcasts by the Palestinians.

Michaelis, who has worked in Israeli television for 25 years, said he sees the concern about ''Mosaic" being anti-Semitic as a ''non-issue," because it reflects the generally negative coverage of Israel in the Middle Eastern media.

''You cannot relate to the Arab world without relating to all strands and all movements. Muslim and fundamental movements are part of the mosaic of the Middle East," he said. ''If you want a real rainbow perspective and a view of what's really happening, you need to see things you don't like."

Dajani agreed that ''Mosaic" offers something new for Americans used to getting essentially the same news, as they flip among CNN, Fox, and MSNBC instead of getting a variety of perspectives from different countries.

''Our concern is to show American viewers what 280 million people in the Middle East see broadcast," he said. ''You don't have to agree with what you see, but it's very important to see what's out there. Just like everywhere else, the world is getting smaller."

Rhonda Stewart can be reached at rstewart@globe.com.