February 28, 2002

Dear NPR News,

The NPR News bulletin at 10 AM Eastern time carried a news spot from Linda Grandstein (a reporter who has for years been accepting thousands of dollars in unethical payments from Zionist groups), which contained a number of inaccuracies and blatant omissions.

The studio intro to Gradstein's spot stated that Israel's assault on Balata and Jenin refugee camps today was "the first large scale entry into Palestinian refugee camps in 17 months of fighting."

This statement is completely indefensible as a matter of fact. Israel has raided and attacked refugee camps on a routine basis. For example, in a massive attack on Brazil refugee camp in Gaza last week, Israeli tanks, infantry and bulldozers killed 5 civilians, injured 35 others and caused widespread damage.

In early January occupation troops carried out a massive middle of the night invasion of Rafah refugee camp, demolishing more than fifty houses, and rendering hundreds of refugees homeless (Peter Kenyon even reported on the aftermath of these events a week later).

These are just two examples among very many that indicate there is nothing new about such Israeli aggressions. It is understandable that NPR would miss many of these events since it keeps neither of its correpondents in the actual conflict zone.

Gradstein stated in her spot that when Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers entered the camps this morning "heavy gun battles broke out between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants."

On what grounds does Gradstein refer to people defending a refugee camp from attack by heavily armed soldiers as "militants"? For all she knows they are simply camp residents or police trying to defend their homes against the onslaught of a foreign army. Or is it that any Palestinian with a gun is a "militant" in Gradstein's view--which closesly reflects Israeli military rhetoric.

Indeed she even says in her report that six of the seven dead in Jenin were police, and one was an elderly man. Of the two others reported dead in Balata, Gradstein gave no details at all. She certainly does not refer to Israeli police who shoot dead Palestinian attackers as "militants," nor to innocent Israeli bystanders killed in such attacks in that way either. The correct word to describe Palestinians firing back at the camps' attackers would be simply "defenders."

While Gradstein mentioned that Palestinians charged that Israel refused to allow ambulances to reached the injured in Balata, she did not mention that over 100 Palestinians, many or most of them civilians were injured in the Israeli attack, eleven of the critically according to Haaretz. By contrast, Gradstein did note earlier in her report that three Israeli soldiers had been lightly wounded in an unrelated incident.

Unfortunately today's report continues the pattern of sloppy and biased pro-Israel reporting by Gradstein and does nothing to assuage very serious concerns raised by her long history of accepting unethical cash payments from Zionist organizations. NPR has yet to adequately assure its listeners that there is no connection between such unethical payments and such shoddy journalism. It should start at the very least by disclosing all of the details of Gradstein's unethical payments from pro-Israeli groups.