The inaccurate, incomplete and distorted NPR reports
described here are representative examples of a much larger body of flawed
coverage of Israel on the tax-supported radio network. Moreover, it is
significant that, far from being inconsequential errors, many of the distorted
allegations are serious and defamatory, severely skewing the realities of
history and of Israeli policies regarding law, housing, water, human rights and
the search for peace. Pervasively minimized or omitted entirely are threats to
Israel’s security and survival.
Although NPR has been provided detailed documentation
regarding inaccuracy in numerous of its broadcasts, the network has neither
addressed the substantive criticism nor issued corrections. This disregard for
factual rigor and public accountability violate NPR’s own guidelines which
state:
All errors of
fact, bias, or omission must be corrected immediately.
Accuracy is a corollary of
fairness, because providing accurate information keeps faith with our sources
and our listeners. When we get it wrong, we undermine not only the credibility
of own (sic) news organization but also the credibility of other journalists.
(Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio
Joumalism)
I. NPR distorts the facts about
population and housing in Jerusalem.
NPR severely distorts the facts about conditions for Arabs
in Jerusalem, whether concerning their population numbers or their housing. A
March 12, 1998, segment reported by Mike Shuster suggested the Israeli
municipality engages in “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs and that Arabs
are prevented from building houses. NPR host Linda Wertheimer claimed
incorrectly in the introduction that:
NPR: “with its
Palestinian East Side and its Jewish West Side, Jerusalem remains a divided
city, but in recent years Israeli authorities have pursued policies that have
made the city less Arab and more Jewish.”
(All Things Considered, March 12, 1998)
FACT:
The population of Jerusalem is today more Arab and less
Jewish than it was in 1967. Then it was 26% Arab, while now it is 30% Arab. Put
another way, in that period, Jerusalem’s Jewish population grew by 114%,
its Arab-population by 163%.
A building boom is underway in Arab neighborhoods of
Jerusalem. This is corroborated in multiple sources, including a study
commissioned by CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America) that examined aerial photographs, tax records and building permit
records. The data showed that Arab building has proceeded at a faster pace than
Jewish building since 1967. Mike Shuster was handed a copy of the study before
he did his report. However, he neither used the information nor contacted the
author, Israel Kimhi, a former city planner of Jerusalem for two decades.
********************
NPR reporter Mike Shuster also claims that Israel has
destroyed “thousands” of illegal Arab structures in the city.
FACT:
This too is false. In 1998, for example, Israel’s
Interior Ministry issued 201 demolition orders against illegal building in
eastern Jerusalem, but implemented only 9. The Jerusalem Municipality cited 578
cases of illegal Arab building, but demolished just 12 structures.
II. NPR broadcasts error-ridden
reports on water issues in the West Bank and Gaza.
NPR has repeatedly broadcast inflammatory, inaccurate
programs on contentious issues such as water scarcity in the West Bank and
Gaza. In a long March 13, 1998 segment focused on West Bank water problems,
Sandy Tolan presented Israel as a callous exploiter of blameless, dependent
Palestinians. He omitted any mention of Palestinian Authority responsibility to
provide for its populace and he misrepresented the facts on virtually every
aspect of the subject. He said:
NPR: “Beneath the [West
Bank] there is a huge underground lake. It’s called the Mountain Aquifer
.... Nearly all the aquifer lies beneath the West Bank, with a small tip
extending below Israel. But during three decades of Israeli occupation,
Palestinians have not been allowed to drill a well without permission from
military authorities, and that’s rarely been granted. Under the Oslo Peace
Accords, Israel has allowed a few new wells, but little has changed across the
West Bank.”
FACT:
Tolan is wrong in his allegations about Israel’s
“three decades” of administration of the West Bank. During that time
Israel drilled or permitted drilling of approximately fifty major wells for
town and agricultural use and supplied hundreds of Arab villages with indoor,
running water. Per capita water use by West Bank Arabs rose from a bare 5 cubic
meters in 1966 before Israel’s administration to 20 CM by 1980 and 35 CM
by 1990-all while the Arab population was growing dramatically.
-
Tolan misrepresents the facts about the aquifers Israel
relies on for water. The “Mountain Aquifer” is made up of three
aquifers, the largest being the Western Aquifer, most of whose water is stored
under Israel proper, providing the country one third of its water. Contrary to
Tolan, Israel is not seizing water from under the feet of West Bank Arabs. Even
Israelis living in most West Bank settlements receive their water from Israel.
The major exception are Jordan Valley settlers who rely on previously untapped
water from the Eastern Aquifer. Far from depriving Arab towns of water, Israel
transfers its own water to cities such as Ramallah.
-
Tolan completely distorts what the peace accords
require and how they have been implemented. Annex III, Article 40 of Oslo II
calls for an increase of 28.6 million cubic meters of water for the
Palestinians, and of that amount fully two-thirds, or 19.1 MCM, is to be
developed by the Palestinians. The agreements spell out in some detail how
each side is to provide for the increased water. For example, to increase water
for the Palestinian city of Jenin, it was agreed that Israel would provide a
major new well there, making available an additional 1.4 million cubic meters
of water. The Palestinians were to connect the well to consumers. Israel
completed the well more than a year ago, but it has gone unused because the PA
has failed to implement the connection. Whereas Israel has moved expeditiously
to fulfill its responsibilities, the Palestinians have not. In Hebron, a focus
of Tolan’s report, Israel was to provide licensing for additional major
wells to be dug. This was done and a German company completed drilling of two
large wells in March 1998. However, the PA has yet to install necessary piping
to deliver the water. If the wells were functioning, they would provide
water for an additional 70,000 people. In Bethlehem, Tekoa, Salfit and
elsewhere Israel complied with its Oslo commitments, but the PA did not,
causing deprivation for Palestinian residents. NPR omitted all this.
***************
On May 12, 1999 Mike O’Connor reported on water
shortages in the West Bank, repeating many of the distorted charges leveled in
the Sandy Tolan segments. Again, Israel alone is held responsible for the
difficulties experienced by the Palestinians who are presented as entirely
victimized and blameless. Like many NPR reports, his one relies heavily on
anecdotal allegations by individual Arabs which are broadcast without
corroboration of the facts and without permitting any Israeli response to the
specific accusations. Among a number of misleading and distorted assertions by
O’Connor is his statement that:
NPR: “Actually,
there’s a lot of water under the West Bank, where most Palestinians live.
It gushes up from wells in a few places like this village of 40 families near
the city of Hebron. The problem for Palestinians, according to the local
Palestinian government, is that Israel decides who gets most of the water from
Palestinian areas. Israel occupied all the areas in 1967.” (Morning
Edition, May 12,1999)
FACT:
O’Connor’s implication that Israel is exploiting
for itself water “under the West Bank,” depriving Palestinians of
water and has been doing so since the country “occupied all the areas in
1967” is inaccurate. The Western Aquifer’s water is easily accessible
only where the aquifer’s storage area approaches the surface and this
accessible region is almost entirely within Israel. As a result, already by the
1950’s Israel was using about 95% of the aquifer’s water, the rest
being used by Arab farmers in the West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem, via
springs and wells.
The failures of the Palestinian Authority to implement
measures to increase water to their own population have been mentioned above.
III. NPR coverage regularly
portrays Israel as the obstacle to peace in the Middle East, while
characterizing Hamas as moderate and “conciliatory” and omitting or
distorting incendiary comments by other Palestinian groups and
leaders.
NPR coverage of the 1997 release of Hamas leader Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin from an Israeli prison inverted the facts. Hamas had been
responsible for multiple suicide bombings in Israeli cities, killing hundreds
of innocent civilians. Despite this bloody record and the organization’s
pervasively inflammatory rhetoric, NPR reporter Eric Weiner saw moderation in
statements by Yassin. He reported that:
NPR: “In public
comments since he was released last week, Sheikh Yassin has struck a fairly
conciliatory tone. Speaking to reporters in Jordan, he said Arabs and Jews can
live together if Palestinian rights are respected.”
(All Things Considered, October 6,1997)
FACT:
“[T]he rights ... [he] wants from the
Jews consist of an entire Palestine from the river to the ocean .... He
stressed the need to pursue violence to liberate all of Palestine... In
response to a question concerning his health, Sheikh Yassin said ‘Today I
am like iron, and tomorrow I will be like an incendiary bomb in the face of the
occupiers.’ ” (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, October
8,1997)
***********
In May, 1999, NPR again whitewashed militant statements of
the Hamas leader. Correspondent Mike Shuster reported that:
NPR: “Sheik
Ahmed Yassin made noticeably conciliatory remarks in a recent newspaper
interview ... . Yasin has concluded he would like to see the current generation
of Palestinians living freely in what had been the occupied territories of the
West Bank and Gaza. In essence, that is the real goal of the peace
process.” (Morning Edition, May 21,1999)
FACT:
What Yassin actually said in this newspaper interview
(excerpted in USA Today, 5/17/99) was that Palestinians today were
prepared to conclude a “temporary cease- fire” on the basis of the
1967 borders and, in a familiar allusion to Koranic teachings, to leave the
rest to the future.
In Hamas ideology, a truce can be offered to the enemies of
Islam only for tactical reasons – principally when the enemy is strong and
the Muslims are weak. The truce period is to be used to change the balance of
forces. When this is accomplished, and the stage has been set for Muslim
victory, the truce must be broken. This strategy follows the practice and
teachings of Islam’s founder, the Prophet Muhammed, who arranged a
ten-year truce with the Quraysh tribe in 628, when his forces were not yet
powerful enough to defeat the Quraysh. The truce has been known since then as
the “Treaty of Hudaybiyah.” Less than two years later, when Muslim
forces were sufficiently strong, they defeated the Quraysh.
Sheik Yassin has repeatedly made clear his views about
temporary accommodation with the Jews. In an interview in 1995 he said:
“Reconciliation with the Jews is a crime
.... If reconciliation means a truce and a cessation of fighting for a
specified period of time, Islam allows the imam [leader] of the Muslims to
undertake such a reconciliation if he believes that the enemy is strong and the
Muslims are weak and need time to prepare and build up. I single out Palestine
in particular, because it is a land of holy places and an Islamic religious
endowment (waqf) that cannot be conceded by any ruler, president or king. Nor
may any generation concede it, because it is the property of all generations of
Muslims until the Day of Judgement... As for the permitted duration of the
truce, many Islamic jurists are of the opinion that it must not exceed 10
years.” (Filastin al-Muslimah, March 1995)
Yassin had also made other incendiary statements around the
same time as NPR’s May story claiming the Sheik was
“conciliatory.” These were unreported by NPR. In April 1999, for
example, he said:
“We are in the stage of liberating a land,
resistance, and Jihad... ”
“There is only one way, namely to abandon the
capitulationist road [of the Oslo negotiations] and move to the course of
resistance and Jihad until the objective is reached. Anything else is
impossible.” (Filastin al-Muslimah, April 1999)
***********
Three days after the October 1994 Tel-Aviv bus bombing by
Hamas in which 22 innocent people were murdered, NPR interviewed Professor John
Esposito, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian
Understanding. The professor, together with NPR host Daniel Zwerdling, passed
quickly over Hamas’s terrorist record to emphasize positive attributes of
the organization. Zwerdling stated:
NPR: “[T]here is another side
of Hamas which few Americans and Israelis know about ... I understand from
talking with Middle East specialists that they run many youth clubs, they have
gymnasiums...”
“[A]Iso I read in one report
that Hamas supports small business projects like honey and cheese making, home
based clothing manufacture...”
“So, John Esposito, basically
what you’re saying, between the lines, is that Hamas-that these people are
terrific community organizers, whether you support their ideas or not?”
(All Things Considered, October 22,1994)
• That is, just three days after a suicide bus bombing,
NPR was attempting to minimize the violent goals and deeds of Hamas and to
rehabilitate its image.
• It should also be noted that NPR has never done an
in-depth look at terrorism committed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups,
which from the signing of Oslo in September, 1993, to early 1996 killed more
Israelis than fell to terrorism in any similar stretch of time in the
country’s history. On the contrary, NPR has glossed over the
terrorists’ agenda and its impact. For example, even though the spate of
Hamas suicide bombings in February-March, 1996 led then Prime Minister Shimon
Peres to halt the Oslo process, NPR has repeatedly obscured Hamas’s
actions and reported that it was the election of former Prime Minister
Netanyahu several months later that brought the process to a standstill.
****************
Earlier in 1994 when Israel radio played a recording of
Yasir Arafat’s notorious Johannesburg speech in which the PA leader
threatened a Jihad, or “holy war,” for Jerusalem, NPR had also
interviewed Professor Esposito. Then too he had downplayed the violence
directed against Israel. He claimed Jihad does not really mean holy war at all:
NPR: “Most Muslims,
when they use the word jihad, use it in a very generic sense. They mean the
struggle to do God’s will, and so for example a Muslim will use the term
the way Jews and Christians and other believers do, that one has to struggle to
be good ... People will talk about a jihad to clean up the town, a jihad for a
literacy campaign, a jihad against AIDS.”
(All Things Considered, May 18,1994)
NPR has not addressed what Jihad means to Arafat as revealed
in his speeches, or reported his extolling suicide bombers.
VI. NPR has systematically distorted
or omitted the PA’s incitement against Israel.
The network has suppressed coverage of PA calls for violence
and war against Israel, its denial of the Holocaust and its teaching of hatred
to Palestinian school children via television and textbooks. When NPR does
mention incitement, instead of reporting the facts directly, it disparages the
issue, stating, for example, that Israel demands an end to what “Israel
calls incitement” or what “it sees as Palestinian
incitement.”
NPR: “Israeli officials still
insist they will not withdraw from one more inch of West Bank land until the
Palestinians meet at least a dozen Israeli demands, including the confiscation
of illegal weapons, and putting an end to what Israel calls incitement and
threats of violence.” (All Things Considered, December
15,1998)
NPR: “Israel wants an
end to what it sees as Palestinian incitement to violence on the West
Bank.” (Weekend Sunday, December 13,1998)
FACT:
Examples of anti-Israel rhetoric and propaganda by the PA omitted from
NPR’s coverage (according to a search of the Nexis news database):
• PA Chairman Yasir Arafat calls for violence,
compares Israel to Satan
“Our rifles are ready and we are ready
to raise them again if anyone tries to prevent us from praying in holy
Jerusalem...” (November 15,1998)
“[T]he struggle against this Satan, the Satan of
money, the Satan of influence, the Satan of discord, the Satan of the robbery
which the Government of Israel is attempting to commit.” (June
28,1998)
“Intensify the revolution and the blessed
Intifada...We must burn the ground under the feet of the invaders.”
(April 16,1998)
(Note: These are but a few examples of many such statements
made by Arafat and other PA officials and ignored by NPR.)
• The Palestinian Authority promotes Holocaust
denial
Holocaust denial by the PA has prompted protests by
Holocaust scholars and coverage in the New York Times (July 24, 1998),
but NPR has ignored the story, including such statements as the following:
“[The Jews] invented the shocking story
of the gas ovens, where Hitler allegedly burned them .... They focused on
women, children and old people and have exploited this to arouse sympathy for
themselves when demanding financial compensation, donations and grants from all
over the world.” (July 2,1998, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, official PA
newspaper)
Moderator. “It is well-known that
every year the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did to them...”
Palestinian author Hassan al -Agha: “[The
Jews] have profited materially, spiritually, politically and economically from
the talk about the Nazi killings. This investment is favorable to them and they
view it as a profitable activity so they inflate the number of victims all the
time .... [A]s you know, when it comes to economics and investments, the Jews
have been very experienced ever since the days of the Merchant of
Venice.” (August 25,1997, official PA television)
• PA television and textbooks teach children to hate
and urge violence and martyrdom
PA television programs for children in which young girls and
boys sing songs extolling suicide bombers and promising to “drench the
ground” with their blood have prompted coverage by other media. CAMERA
representatives personally handed NPR Foreign Editor Loren Jenkins a video copy
of the PA’s Children’s Club program containing clips of young
children praising violence and martyrdom. But NPR ignored this story as well.
A non-government Israeli group,
The Center for Monitoring the Impact of
Peace, has surveyed 140 textbooks being used by children in PA-run schools
and has documented a systematic demonizing of Israel and the Jewish people (see
the survey at the web address: www.edume.org). Throughout the PA curriculum,
whether in history, geography or Islamic studies, the theme of Israel’s
alleged wickedness is reiterated.
An eighth grade literary text asks: “What can we
do to rescue Jerusalem and to liberate it from the thieving enemy?”
-
An Islamic Education text for seventh grades asks:
“Why do Jews hate Muslim unity and want to cause division among them? Give
an example of the evil attempts of Jews from events happening today.”
A section on Zionism in a tenth grade history book is
headed “Zionist Greed.”
An Arabic language text for fifth graders instructs its
readers: “Know my son that Palestine is your country ...that its pure soil
is drenched with the blood of Martyrs ...Why must we fight the Jews and drive
them out of our land?”
On the maps studied by Palestinian children Israel does
not exist. In its place is the state of Palestine.
V. NPR often tries to deflect
criticism of controversial Palestinian actions by leveling parallel – and
incorrect – allegations against Israel.
In the summer of 1997, when Yasir Arafat was sharply
criticized for sanctioning the murder of a number of Palestinians accused of
the “crime” of selling land to Jews, NPR again engaged in damage
control for the Palestinian cause. Daniel Zwerdling interviewed Professor
William Quandt, who said that in Israel there was a parallel situation. He
claimed Israeli Arabs were allowed no access to most of the country’s
land, which was allegedly reserved exclusively for Jews. According to Quandt:
NPR: “Israel was established
as a state for Jews ... the Jewish agency purchases land on behalf of the
Jewish people and then leases it out to its Jewish citizens. Arabs cannot have
access to that land that’s owned by the Jewish agency... most land is held
in trust for the Jewish people, so yes there is a legal basis for what we would
flat out call discriminatory practices.” (All Things Considered,
March 8, 1997)
FACT:
Quandt’s charge is a variation of an old canard, and is
without any foundation in fact. Most of the land in Israel is held by the
Israel Land Authority, not the Jewish Agency (or what Quandt probably meant to
say, the Jewish National Fund). This land is equally available to Israeli Jews
and Arabs; indeed, half the land used by Israeli Arab farmers is leased from
the Israeli government. After an extended correspondence, Quandt admitted he
was wrong, and, at CAMERA’s insistence, wrote to NPR informing them of his
mistake. NPR was notified of the error they had broadcast and messages were
left on Zwerdling’s voice mail. Although NPR clearly considered Quandt to
be a credible expert, when he told the network about his having misrepresented
the facts and misinformed listeners, NPR refused to air a correction.
VI. NPR promotes an extremist,
anti-Israel agenda in its choice and labeling of guest speakers.
NPR’s Ted Clark reported on May 3, 1998, that American
interests are being damaged by friendship with Israel. He blamed Israel for
America’s difficulty mustering allies in the February crisis with Iraq and
said America is a target of terrorists because of Israel. As an example of the
latter he noted the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 249
Marines. Clark did not explain why, then, terrorists also bombed a French
compound the same day, killing 58 men. France has been emphatically pro-Arab in
its policies.
Clark interviewed three speakers on the issue of
“whether the United States has gained more than it’s lost as a result
of its alliance with Israel.” They were Robert Pelletreau, Richard Curtiss
and Howard Kohr.
• Kohr was identified as Executive Director of the
“pro-Israel lobby known as AIPAC,” alerting the audience that his
views on Israel would reflect partisan affiliations. In contrast, Pelletreau
and Curtiss, both of whom have distinctly pro-Arab ties, were cast as neutral
parties. Pelletreau was described simply as a lawyer and former State
Department official in Near Eastern Affairs; there was no mention of his career
as ambassador to numerous Arab countries or of his current law practice
consisting largely of oil companies and Arab interests, including Exxon,
Conoco, Mobil, Texaco, the Dubai Islamic Bank, and the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan. Pelletreau called Israel a “mixed” benefit to America.
• Richard Curtiss was identified as simply the “executive editor
of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.” In fact, he was formerly
Secretary of the American-Arab Affairs Council, and his magazine is venomously
anti-Israel. It characterizes Zionism as “fascism” and
“Nazism” and claims Jews control the media, the CIA, the Pentagon,
the State Department and other departments of government. The magazine recently
published an advertisement for a notorious Holocaust denial book. Clearly,
Curtiss’s statement that Israel has “harmed American interests”
and his denunciation of aid to Israel have to be viewed in the context of his
being a purveyor of the bigotry and slander that fill his magazine. Such skewed
labeling and mislabeling of guest speakers is commonplace on NPR.
VII. NPR coverage of
controversial issues, including much-debated historical events such as Deir
Yassin, tilts overwhelmingly toward Arab views, ignoring accuracy, balance and
fact-checking.
Eric Weiner’s April 9, 1998 report on Deir Yassin was
marred by severe anti-Israel bias, misinformation and strikingly unprofessional
newsgathering procedures. The lengthy report about the 50th anniversary of a
1948 Israeli attack on the Arab town of Deir Yassin also omits key information
about the event. In a common NPR practice, anecdotal, uncorroborated Arab
charges were leveled against Israel with no opportunity for Israeli response.
At least six speakers presented views hostile to Israel and only two presented
a counterpoint.
Controversy has raged over whether Arab casualties occurred
in the course of a military operation or as a deliberate massacre. Although
many historical accounts record that Arab forces in Deir Yassin were attacking
Jewish convoys trying to break the siege of Jerusalem, that the Jews
counterattacked trying to dislodge those forces and that Arab civilians were
killed in the course of the conflict, Weiner offers not a word about these
issues. Instead, in an unabashedly one-sided presentation he promotes the views
of the so-called “new historians” whom he cites sympathetically and
at length.
He repeats the extremist assertions of Ilan Pappe and Benny
Morris, citing only one mainstream historian in response. Ilan Pappe’s
outrageous charge that the Zionists had “a plan to forcibly expel or kill
as many Arabs as possible” is quoted without making clear to listeners
that he is a leader of Israel’s Communist (Hadash) party. Indicative of
the radical positions of Hadash is the website of the party
(www.gezernet.co.il/chadash) which includes links to “Another View of
Stalin,” a sympathetic portrait of the Soviet dictator, and to “The
Che Guevara Page.”
Weiner, however, presents Pappe as a beleaguered champion of
reform.
The NPR reporter even cites a Palestinian professor from Bir
Zeit University who believes the new historians have not gone far enough. The
professor claims that:
NPR: It is really similar to what
happened to the Indians in the United States. And Israel now is like the United
States -- big and strong and can afford to admit its mistakes in the
past...
FACT:
Few comparisons are as false and invidious as equating
Native Americans with Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish people with American
colonists. Jews are indigenous people of Israel, having millennia old ties of
history, religion and physical presence in the land. Moreover, Zionist
development during the Mandate period between 1917 and 1948 attracted at least
100,000 Arabs from neighboring countries who came in search of better living
conditions. Ben Gurion and early Israeli leaders envisioned coexistence with
the Arabs, and those who remained within Israel are today citizens with full
political rights.
Particularly reprehensible was an interview with Mohammed
Radwan, said to be an eyewitness at Deir Yassin, who alleges the battle quickly
“turned into a massacre.” Radwan further claims that Jewish forces
prevented the Red Cross from treating a badly injured baby. Weiner offers
neither corroboration for Radwan’s charges nor opportunity for Israeli
rebuttal. No Jewish eyewitnesses to Deir Yassin were permitted to comment on
the allegations against them. There are such witnesses available, and Eric
Weiner evidently traversed the country to conduct interviews with numerous
other individuals as part of this report. Nevertheless, he failed to present
the views of any Jewish eyewitnesses.
Nor does Weiner mention the numerous Jewish and Arab reports
that have significantly discredited the massacre claims. It is noteworthy in
this regard that he was silent about news stories appearing at the time of his
broadcast such as the Jerusalem Report’s of April 2, 1998. In that
story journalist Eric Silver wrote:
In a BBC television
series, “Israel and the Arabs: the 50 Year Conflict,” Hazem
Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news
in 1948, describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City
with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi,
the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (the representative body of the
Arabs of British Palestine).
I
asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story, recalled Nusseibeh, now living
in Amman. He said, “We must make the most of this.” So we wrote a
press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant
women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.
A Deir Yassin survivor identified as Abu Mahmud, said
the villagers protested at the time. “We said, ‘There was no
rape.’ [Khalidi] said, ‘We have to say this, so the Arab armies will
come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.’ ”
Nusseibeh, a member of one of Jerusalem’s leading
Arab families, admitted that the propaganda boomeranged. “This was our
biggest mistake,” he said. “We did not realize how our people would
react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin,
Palestinians fled in terror.” Like Hazem Nusseibeh, Palestinian scholars
have begun to put the massacre in a more sober perspective. Standard accounts,
fostered for different reasons by Jews and Arabs, put the Arab death toll at
240-250 (the victims were buried in haste by the mainstream Haganah Jewish
force without keeping count). The true figure, it is now acknowledged was half
that.
Weiner proceeds from irresponsible commentary on the Deir
Yassin events to strikingly prejudicial and uninformed accusations about
Israel’s education system. Introducing the piece, NPR’s Robert Siegel
declares:
NPR: The story of Deir
Yassin is kept alive among Palestinians, but not among Israelis. Now, as Israel
prepares to celebrate half a century of statehood, citizens and scholars are
taking a new look at such key events in the country’s
history.
FACT:
Pursuant to Siegel’s designating Deir Yassin a
“key” event in Israel’s history – which it is not –
Weiner, apparently believing he has exposed a sinister conspiracy by teachers
to conceal the Deir Yassin story from Jewish children, then queries Jewish
students on their knowledge of the occurrence. Met with “blank
stares” he declares, “And this high school was considered one of the
best in Israel.”
As though exposing a further wickedness in the Israeli
system, he quotes an Israeli history teacher saying she does not teach the
post-1948 period since the founding of the state. What Weiner fails to report
is that Israel’s modern history is taught in civics courses and in history
classes that supplement the nationally-mandated curriculum.
Moreover, if students do not recall events at Deir Yassin
this is not the result of some nefarious plot, as Weiner would have it.
According to Israeli teachers, students are equally likely not to hear about
Arab massacres of Jews, such as that of more than 70 doctors, nurses and
hospital personnel murdered in a convoy attempting to reach Hadassah Hospital
on Mt. Scopus on April 13, 1948. The anniversary of that massacre passed
without comment or coverage on NPR. Nor did the network query young Arab
students about their awareness of the murders of these innocent Jews, or Arab
teachers about exclusion of the convoy killings from school curricula.
VIII. NPR’s blacklisting of
terrorism expert Steve Emerson underscores the network’s whitewashing
of Islamic radicalism.
In a dramatic example of NPR’s sharp tilt toward Arab
positions, the network caved in to an Arab-American group that opposed the
appearance of terrorism expert Steven Emerson in a
broadcast about U.S. missile strikes against terrorist targets. A
representative of the Chicago-based Arab-American Action Network (AAAN), Ali
Abunimah, extracted an August 21, 1998 apology from NPR and a pledge that it
would be “NPR policy” to bar the well-known investigative journalist
in the future. In an exchange of e-mails, Abunimah berated NPR program producer
Ellen Silva after the terrorism expert was interviewed on August 20, claiming
the network had promised him Emerson would be kept off the air.
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby exposed the
blacklist policy in an August 31 column, and NPR quickly reversed course,
claiming Ellen Silva “misspoke” when she wrote that it was “NPR
policy” to bar Emerson. The network was silent about the apparent
complicity of numerous other staffers in the blacklist policy, and about the
multiple written assurances extended to Abunimah. Nor did NPR mention the fact
that, in an apparent effort to further placate Abunimah, he had been invited on
the air and interviewed the same day the network promised to bar Emerson from
its airwaves. Abunimah used the interview to denounce American action in
striking at suspected terrorist sites, and to blame Israel for regional
tensions.
The swift and compliant reaction of NPR to Ali
Abunimah’s criticism is especially notable in light of statements made by
the network’s Foreign Editor, Loren Jenkins, at a conference of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in June 1997. At that meeting
Jenkins told his listeners that “the propensity of letters of complaint
that come into NPR over our Middle East coverage-I can tell you is about ninety
percent claiming that we are pro-Arab ... .” Given this appraisal, it is
all the more striking that the network responded with such alacrity to the
relatively rare criticism from “pro-Arab” listeners. In contrast,
network response to overwhelming public sentiment that NPR coverage is severely
and continuously biased against Israel has been to stonewall critics and refuse
serious self-appraisal.
Steven
Emerson, investigative journalist, author of several books, and
documentary maker (his Jihad in America aired nationally on PBS),
has been severely attacked by groups such as AAAN and CAIR (Council on
American-Islamic Relations) for his reports on links between
self-portrayed “charities” in America and Middle East terrorist
groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Leaders of CAIR, in particular,
have attempted to smear Emerson as a racist for reporting on events and
publications that call for war against America and Israel and which raise
funds that are channeled to violent Middle East groups. CAIR has denounced
Emerson for making a statement in the aftermath of the bombing of the
Oklahoma federal building noting that the attack resembled Middle-East
style terrorism. Although numerous commentators, including Mary Jane Deeb,
editor of the pro-Arab Middle East Journal, made similar
observations, CAIR has attempted to cast Emerson as “anti-Muslim.”
(Deeb, a professor at American University, said the Oklahoma bombing
“was set up to look like something coming straight out of the Middle
East.”)
