Matthew Kalman

Religious Tension and Shooting–But Little Press–in Bethlehem

An underage Christian girl from Bethlehem runs away with her older Muslim beau. Her outraged father tries to retrieve her and is turned back by armed men threatening to kill him. Bethlehem's Christians violently demonstrate, and Palestinian police shoot into the crowd, injuring more than a dozen. This all actually happened in Bethlehem, but you wouldn't know it from following the mainstream press.

Thumbs Up to Matthew Kalman

THUMBS UP to USA Today Jerusalem correspondent Matthew Kalman for his trenchant coverage of otherwise unreported stories concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict. On Dec. 8, 2000, for example, in an article entitled "Let our kids alone, Arafat told," he reported that a group of Palestinian women, the Tulkarm Women's Union, sent a letter to Yasser Arafat demanding that the Palestinian Authority stop using children in the clashes against Israel.