When I think about Rick Steves, I think of a politically benign guy who loves to travel and has a penchant for picnics. He strikes me as a very fair-minded individual, and I don't just say that because he briefly attended the University of Puget Sound. With this in mind, I was surprise to find out during a talk he gave a few months ago that the PBS station that serves New York City (the most viewed PBS affiliate in the country) refused to air a travelogue he made about his travels to Israel and Palestine. According to him, the mostly Jewish board of that PBS station asked the network not to run it. During the talk, Steves showed this documentary, which was about as fair and even-handed as a documentary on such a sensitive subject can be. In it he travels to both countries, led by soft spoken hosts that take pains to be fair and sympathetic to the other side. What is most surprising is that nothing comes up in a google search using keywords like Rick Steves, PBS, censorship, refuse to air, New York City, Israel, Palestine, etc. It is a big story that simply hasn't been reported by any US media outlets. Steves has written that he became sympathetic to the Palestinian's story after watching the documentary Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land. To watch Steves' travelogue, The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today, click here.
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