The New York Sun shines a light on WNET, the New York City PBS affiliate that is going to mark September 11 by broadcasting a documentary about Arab Americans living in New York City. The subject in itself is not a problem; but the web site for the show—Caught in the Crossfire—contains a host of outrageous historical distortions:

A few of the many aspects of the Web site criticized by the Israelis and American Jewish groups:

* Israeli premiers Barak, Netanyahu and Sharon are described, respectively, as a “former military leader,” “hawkish” and a “right-wing politician.” But Yasser Arafat is described as “leader of the movement for a Palestinian state” with no mention of his connections to terrorism.

* The site makes it sound like Jordan did not participate in the 1948 Arab attack on Israel. As Mr. Safian of CAMERA put it: “That would be news to the defenders of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and those of the Etzion Block — especially the ones executed after they surrendered to the Jordanian Legion. How exactly do the producers think Jordan came to occupy the so-called West Bank?”

* The Web site lists the election of Mr. Netanyahu and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin as setbacks to peace negotiations in the 1990s, but makes no mention of terrorist bombings by Hamas against Israeli civilians.

* The site includes a timeline with an entry for when Mr. Sharon “provokes al-Aqsa intifada.” In fact, Palestinian Arab officials, including Mr. Arafat’s justice minister and communications minister, have acknowledged that the violence was planned by the Arabs weeks before Mr. Sharon’s visit.

* The site says “In 1991 Israeli officials met secretly with a Palestinian delegation in Madrid.” In fact the Madrid peace conference was no secret — it was on the front pages of the world’s newspapers at the time.

* In a section listing “resources” for further study, the sites lists at face value several groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — that have been widely criticized in the press and by experts as soft on terrorism.