From: Ali Abunimah
To: nprnews@npr.org

February 17, 2002

Dear NPR News,

The 11.30 ET news bulletin this morning reported that a Palestinian suicide bomber attempted to blow himself up at an Israeli army base near the town of Khudayra today injuring two bystanders before being shot dead by Israeli troops. The bulletin mentioned that yesterday another suicide bomber had blown himself up at a pizzeria in the occupied West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron killing two teenagers and himself.

The bulletin did not report at all, however, that yesterday Israeli occupation forces killed at least four Palestinians, including two sixteen year old boys, and that all these killings occurred before the suicide bombing in Karnei Shomron. One of the killings was reported to be an assassination carried out with a car bomb planted by an Israeli death squad. That attack injured three Palestinian children in addition to killing an alleged Hamas activist. Prior to the attempted bombing in Khudayra today, Israeli warplanes once again attacked the Palestinian city of Nablus (reportedly in response to the attack in Karnei Shomron.)

Earlier this morning on Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR correspondent Peter Kenyon correctly reported that in the past week 7 Israelis and 15 Palestinians have been killed in ongoing violence. News bulletins should also reflect this reality. Bulletins which report only on violence against Israelis while specifically excluding mention of violence against Palestinians during the identical time period are entirely unacceptable and are simply misinformation.

Sincerely,

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org