From: Ali Abunimah
To: morning@npr.org
Subject: When Israel's agenda becomes NPR's agenda

December 6, 2001

Dear NPR News,

I find it quite astonishing that Linda Gradstein in her various news spots this morning about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and her wide-ranging Q&A with Morning Edition host Alex Chadwick failed to report on the unprecedented declaration of more than one hundred states signatories to the 1949 Geneva Conventions calling on Israel to abide by the same Convention and other international laws.

The Daily Telegraph reported that those states including the United Kingdom and every other member of the European Union "expressed deep concern about a "deterioration of the humanitarian situation" in Palestinian areas, condemned Jewish settlements there as "illegal" and urged Israel to refrain from "grave breaches" such as "unlawful deportation", "wilful killing" and "torture"." (December 6, 2001)

This was the first time since the Convention was signed that the signatories have made any such declaration.

The session was boycotted by the United States, Israel and Australia. The United States as one of the original High Contracting Parties of the Convention is actually obliged not only to participate but to enforce the Convention. It refuses to do so.

Instead, NPR's news agenda has simply become Israel's agenda. Has Arafat carried out enough arrests? Can Arafat control militants? Will Israel extend its "grace period" for the arrests? Has Arafat jumped through enough hoops? What pressure is the US 'mediator' putting on Arafat? You get the picture.

The hypocrisy of this is breathtaking. When the United States and one other country charge off to war, NPR and its colleagues are not ashamed to trumpet the birth of an "international coalition." When 114 countries, including the Unites States' closest allies take a firm and unprecedented position on one of the most dangerous and long-standing conflicts in the world, but that position isolates the United States, and exposes its policy for the sham that it is, NPR simply ignores it.

What is the principle behind such "news judgment?"

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org