From: Ali Abunimah
To: Weekend Edition Sunday, National Public Radio
Subject: Conscientious Objectors and geography

July 22, 2001

Dear NPR News,

Thank you for Linda Gradstein's report on Weekend Edition Sunday about the small but growing number of Israeli conscientious objectors refusing to serve in the occupied territories.

The report provided your early Sunday morning listeners with an often unheard Israeli perspective, including the voices of Peretz Kidron a veteran Israeli anti-occupation activist and writer, and several young Israeli men who voiced their strong opposition to Israel's ruthless and brutal repression against Palestinians.

Gradstein made one serious geographical error, however, which I wish to point out. In introducing one of the soldiers, she stated that he had served at a checkpoint on the edge of Ramallah preventing Palestinians from "entering Israel."

As Gradstein surely knows, no such checkpoint exists. She may possibly have been referring to the major checkpoint to the south of Ramallah entirely inside the occupied West Bank. It is at this checkpoint that Israeli soldiers routinely prevent Palestinians from leaving Ramallah and entering Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem and the 73 square kilometer of occupied West Bank territory in and around east Jerusalem that Israel has unilaterally and in defiance of international law claimed to have annexed as its capital.

It is of fundamental importance not to obscure the fact that Israel's checkpoints serve primarily to block access to other parts of the occupied territories and to isolate Palestinians in enclaves within their own land. Gradstein made it sound as if the Israel soldier in the report was only controlling access to "Israeli" territory.

Unfortunately, Gradstein's assertion that a checkpoint exists separating Ramallah from "Israel" illustrates her--and by extension NPR's--clear adoption of the Israeli position that occupied east Jerusalem and the Israeli defined 'Greater Jerusalem' area around it is sovereign Israeli territory. NPR has previously confirmed its endorsement of Israel's position by consistently excluding the 160,000 Israeli settlers in and around occupied east Jerusalem from the total number of Israeli settlers implanted in the occupied territories by armed force and in violation of international law.

While many aspects of NPR's coverage have improved in recent months, its advocacy by implication that Jerusalem is "Israel's capital" precludes considering NPR's coverage to be fully fair and unbiased.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org