From: Ali Abunimah
To: atc@npr.org, morning@npr.org
Subject: NPR (No Palestinians Radio)

March 30, 2001

Dear NPR News,

Over the past week, NPR has carefully and consistently reported violence which has affecting Israelis, especially children. Violence against Palestinians has been given less attention, and today is being virtually ignored.

Other than hourly newscasts some of which carried brief 45 second reports by Eric Weiner, neither Morning Edition nor All Things Considered had any reports on the grave escalation of Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the wake of President Bush's green light to the occupation forces to treat all Palestinian resistance as "terrorism." This is all the more astonishing since today's protests occurred on Land Day, a commemoration of great significance to all Palestinians.

News spots were themselves cursory and extremely unbalanced, giving great detail about Palestinian stone throwing, flag-burning and threats by Hamas, while giving almost no details at all about the Palestinian deaths and the Israeli violence that caused them. The number of deaths, without other details, was given only in the newsreader's introduction.

For example, Weiner's spot during the 16.30 ET news bulletin:

"This was one of the bloodiest days of the six month long palestinian uprising. Throughout the West Bank Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition at Palestinian stone-throwers. In the town of Nablus more than 10,000 people gathered to protest the Israeli air raids earlier this week. Some burned Israeli and U.S. flags as well as effigies of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. At Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque more than one hundred Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police who responded with tear gas and rubber coated bullets. Police briefly evacuated Jewish worshippers from the nearby Western Wall. Meanwhile the Islamic group Hamas which claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings this week said it is preparing to carry out more attacks. Eric Weiner, NPR news, Ramallah."

Unmentioned in any of the news spots I heard was the fact that occupation troops used heavy machine guns against Palestinians in several locations including Ramallah, while in Hebron Israelis used tanks to fire at a neighborhood adjacent to a Jewish settlement. No Israelis were reported killed or injured today, which perhaps explains the short shrift given to the day's events.

Today's failure to adequately report on Israel's continued crackdown on Palestinian civilians follows a day after NPR once again granted an Israeli politician five minutes of free time in which to blame the Palestinians for Israel's brutal actions, with no Palestinian given an opportunity to respond.

It is now routine for Israelis to be granted one on one interviews by NPR, while not one single Palestinian or other Arab has had a similar opportunity in the meantime. Here is a list of Israelis recent interviews by NPR: