From: Ali Abunimah
To: wesat@npr.org
Subject: Dan Schorr's "shocking" bias

October 20, 2001

Dear NPR News,

Today on Weekend Edition Saturday senior NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr said that there has been an unwritten rule that leaders are not targeted in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and that therefore the assassination of Israeli cabinet minister and ethnic cleansing advocate Rehavam Zeevi constitutes a "new" and "shocking" escalation. This is an amazing statement.

Schorr did not deign to mention that dozens of Palestinians have been assassinated by Israeli death squads in the past year, including such senior political figures as Mustafa Zibri, the Secretary General of the PFLP. Nor did he acknowledge that Israel has been assassinating Palestinian leaders for decades. The list is too long to put down here but includes the murder of Khalil Al Wazir, a senior PLO official in Tunis in 1988 by Israeli commandos. In the mid 1970s Israel set about systematically executing the elected mayors of Palestinian towns and cities in the occupied West Bank.

Schorr had no outrage at all for Israel's tank rampages through Palestinian cities that have claimed at least 20 Palestinian lives in the past three days, most of them innocent civilians, two of them children and at least three women. Dozens of others have been injured. Had Palestinian actions claimed such a toll among Israelis, Schorr would no doubt have had something to say about it.

It seems that Palestinian lives are so worthless to Mr. Schorr that he doesn't even notice when Israeli death squads end them. Hence he only avows "shock" when Israel's methods and policies are turned on one of their authors.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org