From: Ali Abunimah
To: morning@npr.org
Subject: Commentaries by Palestinian and American Jew reveal differences

August 30, 2001

Dear NPR News,

Thank you for the commentaries by a young American Jewish woman and a young Palestinian man on Morning Edition today. I found both pieces illuminating.

The commentary by the young American Jewish woman Rebecca Cory, who recently returned from a year of study in Jerusalem, contrasted strongly with that by Palestinian university student Salim Habash. Cory had not one single word to say about the nearly six hundred Palestinians killed by the Israeli state she "dreams" about and not one word about the millions of Palestinians native to the same land who live under brutal military occupation or exile in refugee camps so that she, an American, can travel freely to Israel, learn about her religion and heritage and foster her entirely self-indulgent view of the world. In fact, Cory did not even use the word "Palestinian," although of course she mentioned the word "terrorist." Cory provided no analysis at all, just an emotional appeal based on her own feelings and sentimentality for Israel which totally excluded any mention of the people who for fifty three years have had to move out of the way or be crushed so that she can feel that the place is "hers" and contemplate her children making a "homeland" there. She described sitting on a bus looking around at other passengers wondering if anyone of them could be so angry at "the world" (of course not at Israel) that he might want to blow himself up and take her with him.

Cory apparently knows and cares absolutely nothing about the military occupation and how it brutalizes and dehumanizes millions of people, a few of them to the point where death becomes a better option than living, although she benefits from this occupation directly.

Habash, by contrast, is a young man whose family daily experiences the brutality of the occupation army. Yet even though all those he sees are settlers or soldiers, Israelis are not invisible to Habash: he spoke of Israelis and Palestinians who are "dying every day," and of the Israeli victims of suicide bombings he said "we bitterly grieve their loss." He provided an analysis that spoke of a need for an end to military occupation in order for there to be peace.

I think it would have been more interesting for NPR to pair Habash with a young Israeli, rather than with an American Jewish student, but Cory's commentary, if nothing else, served to underscore the lethal mixture of naivete, dogma, navel-gazing and denial that permeates support for Israel in the United States. There are also American Jews who believe that supporting Israel means confronting the injustices imposed on the Palestinians rather than waving the Star of David Spangled Banner to obscure them come what may. I hope that NPR will make a space for them too.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org