NPR failure to even note BDS’ apparent responsibility for depriving hundreds of Palestinians of a reliable, solid livelihood - by Tamar Sternthal

...For Robin Young and Derek Thompson, SodaStream's former employment of Palestinians and its subsequent "punishment" of employees with layoffs counterbalance the company's "positive moral valance." There are no "moral questions," however, about the BDS activists who claim credit for depriving Palestinians of their livelihoods.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA..
21 August '18..

In yesterday’s segment about Pepsi Co.’s $3.2 billion purchase of SodaStream, NPR “Here and Now” host Robin Young and her guest Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic, set up the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement as a force for moral good in its fight against the bad-acting Israeli beverage company. The journalists do so without even identifying BDS, instead citing “Palestinians and their supporters” and “pro-Palestinian groups” as SodaStream’s critics. In the “Here and Now” segment, it is these moral heroes calling out the Israeli company for the “moral questions” (as Thompson puts it) surrounding the company’s former location in the West Bank, its “support for Israeli occupation of Palestine,” and the subsequent “punishment” of its employees for laying them off.

The agreeable duo — Young lobs only softballs at Thompson — give voice only to the anti-Israel and anti-Palestinian-employment viewpoint that SodaStream “represented support for Israeli occupation of Palestine,” a blight on the healthful, eco-friendly company’s “positive moral valance.” The pair fail to raise the “moral questions” about, or even note, BDS’ apparent responsibility for the factory’s move from the West Bank to southern Israel, depriving hundreds of Palestinians of a reliable, solid livelihood. A transcript of the relevant excerpt follows:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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In Media's Gaza, Rioters "Protest" and "Protesters" Riot - by Ini Gilead

...The perversity of NPR’s language choices was showcased spectacularly by one particular Orwellian sentence describing would-be bombers as protesters: “The army says it killed three protesters who were trying to set a bomb next to the security fence in Rafah,” NPR reported. If only they wanted to buy discounted Nutella instead of bomb Israelis, the reporter might have had fewer misgivings about using accurate language.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
18 May '18..

NPR knows a riot when it sees one.

After French supermarket customers pushed and punched their way to heavily discounted jars of Nutella, the public radio giant described the scene as a “riot.”

In a Morning Edition report out of Kenya, an NPR anchor referred to stone-throwers as rioters. “I’m at a polling station, and it’s surrounded by protesters, by rioters who are throwing rocks at the polling place,” she exclaimed.

And when Pakistani men “smashed police cars and tried to set fire to the local stations,” this, too, was straightforwardly labeled a “riot” by NPR.

Gaza rioter hurling stonesBut in recent weeks, crowds of men hurling stones, throwing firebombs, attacking a border fence, and setting fire to fields and buildings were characterized in a strikingly different way. These men were Palestinians in Gaza. The object of their rage was Israel. And for NPR journalists across the network’s news programs, there seemed to be a policy of avoiding the R word.

“Israeli forces killed at least 60 protesters and injured more than 1,000 on Monday, firing on demonstrators who had massed along its roughly 40-mile border with the Gaza Strip,” NPR’s Colin Dwyer reported, although Hamas later admitted that 50 of the dead were its operatives, “not regular people,” and although Israel noted that the day’s casualties included eight armed Hamas fighters who opened fire on Israeli soldiers while trying to sneak across the border.

The perversity of NPR’s language choices was showcased spectacularly by one particular Orwellian sentence describing would-be bombers as protesters: “The army says it killed three protesters who were trying to set a bomb next to the security fence in Rafah,” NPR reported. If only they wanted to buy discounted Nutella instead of bomb Israelis, the reporter might have had fewer misgivings about using accurate language. (Notwithstanding NPR’s characterization, the army used the word “terrorist,” not protester, to describe those setting the bomb.)

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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NPR's “Pro-Con” Con: Curating Criticism of Israel - by Gilead Ini

...NPR's listeners might be able to conscientiously evaluate what they hear on the air. But it's much more difficult for them to take into account what isn't being heard. In this case, despite the announcement that they would hear from both "an Israeli and a Palestinian," Israeli (and Palestinian) views exploring Palestinian responsibility for the continued conflict weren't represented in All Things Considered's coverage of the Six-Day War anniversary.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
12 June '17..

For the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, NPR's All Things Considered broadcast four interviews over four days that, on their face, appeared to ensure a sort of "ethnic balance" among those interviewed. Listeners heard from two Jews, and two Palestinians.

NPR's Robert Siegel made a point of highlighting the equilibrium. In his June 6 segment, he opened by saying that, "This week, we're asking a couple of writers — an Israeli and a Palestinian — what the Six-Day War and its consequences have meant for them." And his June 7 broadcast: "Yesterday we heard from Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua about what it was like for an Israeli for him during the war," he said. "Well, today, the Palestinian writer and activist Raja Shehadeh is going to share his memories of the Six-Day War and his sense of its legacy and consequences."

The broadcasts featuring Yehoshua and Shehadeh followed another set of interviews with Jewish editor Jane Eisner on June 4 and a Palestinian named Omar Omar on June 5. Listeners might have been tempted to feel satisfied that all things were indeed considered, having ostensibly been exposed to a balanced and broad range of views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in actuality, of course, "balanced" doesn't necessarily mean "broad." Particular ethnicities aren't bound to particular opinions.

Particular guests, on the other hand, do often have known opinions. And in this case, NPR surely would have known what they, and their listeners, were getting: Two generally self-critical Jewish voices. And two Palestinian voices that view Israel through a harsh lens.

You can call it the "'pro-con' con": A range of presentations that are meant to give the impression of balance, but that are in fact curated to reinforce a narrow message.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Misleading the Public on Palestinian Incitement to Violence at NPR - by Ricki Hollander

...By covering up the role of Abbas and the PA leadership in promoting anti-Israel hatred and encouraging violence – Harris deprives listeners the facts they need to understand exactly who and what are perpetuating the violent conflict.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
18 May '16..

On May 15, NPR's All Things Considered aired a piece (accompanied by a website article) by Emily Harris focusing on an alleged "shift" in Palestinian attitudes against anti-Israel violence. The journalist emphasized the "remarkable" claim by PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Israeli TV that his "security guys go inside schools searching students' bags for knives" and counsel students that "this is wrong."

Indeed, Abbas' claim was remarkable, but not necessarily for the reasons Emily Harris suggests. She attributes the noteworthiness of Abbas' claim to the notion that "it's very delicate for Abbas to acknowledge his security forces do things that some Palestinians see as follow Israeli orders" and to the fact that attacks against Israelis were "initially popular among many Palestinians." The implication is that Abbas and his security forces have bravely risked popularity in order to discourage violence.

Those familiar with the situation on the ground, however, recognize that Abbas' remarks to an Israeli audience are notable for an entirely different reason: They indicate Abbas' duplicitous attempt to cover up his and his administration's role in the anti-Israel hate speech and incitement that fuel the attacks, even as the rhetoric continues in official Palestinian Authority (PA) media.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

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Romanticizing Child's Attacker - Back to the Bad Old Days at NPR?

Andrea Levin..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
03 June '13..

Is it back to the bad old days at NPR?

National Public Radio’s May 30, 2013 Morning Edition segment reported by Emily Harris displays all the hallmarks of anti-Israel bias that once characterized daily coverage on the network. Heavily skewed toward the Palestinian perspective, the piece romanticizes perpetrators of violence and violates the most basic ethics of fairplay in reporting on a contentious issue – giving more than twice as much air-time to Palestinian perspectives and including three Palestinian speakers to just one Israeli.

Indicative of the sharp bias is the story’s focus. On the occasion of the release from intensive care of a Jewish child severely injured in a stone-throwing attack by Palestinians, NPR turns not to the dangers faced by Jews under threat from such lethal violence but to extensive, sympathetic treatment of the grievances of the Palestinian perpetrator, Tareq Hammed, and his mother. A brief introductory reference to the child, Adele Bitton, is followed by lengthy commentary devoted to the complaints of the Palestinians, to such things as Hammed being arrested late at night, soldiers shouting at, handcuffing and blindfolding him – and his not having time to change clothes. Hammed’s mother is given a platform to lament that she’d also been witness to her husband’s arrest by Israeli soldiers, the implication being not that father and son were two of a kind, assaulting the innocent, but that they were a family of courageous resistance fighters.

When Adele’s mother describes the rock-throwing attack and says the intent of the attackers is to kill, Harris interjects that: “An Israeli journalist caused an outcry among Israeli settlers when she recently wrote that throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” NPR failed to identify the “Israeli journalist” as far-left Ha’aretz commentator, Amira Hass, and deceptively implied she was denounced only by “Israeli settlers.” In fact, Israelis across the political spectrum, including left-leaning Yossi Beilin, deplored her statement. Beilin’s column, entitled “Violence Is Never Legitimate,” appeared in Israel Hayom and included the following:

Hass was wrong to claim that those who are under occupation have a "birthright and a duty" to engage in rock-throwing attacks. Throwing stones is a violent act that may kill or maim....

A moral person cannot come out with such statements...

Sternthal - NPR Jaffa Story Alleges Israeli Plot to Eradicate Arabs

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA Media Analysis
20 November '11



Sheera Frenkel's Nov. 18 NPR news report charges Israel with a purported agenda "to have a purely Jewish state and to get rid of all Palestinians, the ones in the West Bank and in Israel," as one of her main interviewees puts it. Frenkel bases her alarmist story on three cases of vandalism and the distortion of terminology, among other misrepresentations ("Attacks Target Palestinians in Israeli Towns").

Host Renee Montagne introduces the broadcast:

In Israel, tensions are rising between the country’s Jews and the Palestinian Arab citizens, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Over the past few months, several Arab sites in Israel have been vandalized by militant Jews who’ve left graffiti such as Death to Arabs. Sheera Frankel reports.

Frenkel reports:

Over the last few months, there have been a series of attacks targeting Palestinians within Israel. In October, a mosque in the northern Arab village of Tuba Zangaria was torched and a Muslim cemetery [sic] was vandalized and tombstones smashed. At both sites, graffiti was found linking the attacks to Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank.

Avia says she came to the protest because she was shocked by what was happening. She speaks in English as she points out that many right-wing Israelis use different terms for Palestinians that live within Israel.

Avia: They don’t call them Palestinians. They call them Israeli Arabs. That’s their way to erase their Palestinian identity, okay, and kind of contain them within Israel. But the agenda is to have a purely Jewish state and to get rid of all Palestinians, the ones in the West Bank and in Israel.

Misrepresentation of Terminology

Avia’s assertion, which Frenkel wholeheartedly accepts, that the term "Israeli Arab" is a derogatory term used by "right-wing Israelis" is patently absurd. In fact, a broad swath of Israel, as well as non-Israelis, use this accepted terminology. While in recent years some Israeli Arabs have in fact prefered the term "Palestinian," and some members of the Israeli far-left (as well as, apparently, NPR as of late) have adopted this terminology, "Israeli Arabs" is most commonly in use. Even groups on the left, such as the New Israel Fund , refer to Arabs in Israel as Israeli Arabs. Moreover, Avia herself even signed a NIF petition which refers to Israel’s Arab population as Israeli Arabs. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, which can hardly be considered right-wing, regularly uses the term Israeli Arab, and the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, mentioned in Frenkel's broadcast as fighting against alleged racist practices in Jaffa, also uses that language. Outside of Israel, Al Jazeera apparently has no problem with the term, nor does NPR itself. (For example, Terry Gross and John Powers used the term on "Fresh Air," Feb. 25, 2010, and Robert Siegel likewise referred to "Israeli Arabs" on Jan. 19, 2010, and on July 23, 2009). Are Ha’aretz, the New Israel Fund, Al Jazeera and NPR also guilty of being right-wing outfits bent on erasing Palestinian identity because they refer to "Israeli Arabs"?

A September 20, 2011 Al Jazeera Headline

(Read full "NPR Jaffa Story Alleges Israeli Plot to Eradicate Arabs")

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NPR Sees Tit for Tat Violence

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
24 March '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/03/npr_sees_tit_for_tat_violence.html

"Tit for tat" is defined as "an equivalent given in retaliation," or "giving back exactly what one receives." Sheera Frenkel, reporting on NPR's "All Things Considered," cites alleged "tit for tat" violence between Israelis and Palestinians:

Over the past several weeks, Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in tit-for-tat violence that has left civilians dead on both sides in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

But her own description of the violence on both sides belies the "tit for tat" canard. Her next words are:

In Gaza, Palestinian militants have fired more than 60 rockets into southern Israeli communities over the last week, injuring at least two Israelis. The IDF has responded with targeted attacks against Palestinian militants. But in one exchange on Tuesday, an Israeli tank misfired and killed four Palestinian civilians in a home close to where the militants had been firing missiles. The IDF said that four militants were also killed in that attack. (Emphasis added.)

In other words, Palestinians indiscriminately set bombs and fire rockets at purely civilian targets, with no military target nearby, ie commit war crimes. Israel attacks Palestinian terrorists who are firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and who use the cover of their own civilian population to do so. As a result, the unfortunate Palestinian civilians exploited as human shields by Palestinian terrorists are killed. Tit for tat?

Moreover, among the civilians dead in the West Bank in the last few weeks (unmentioned by Frenkel), were the five members of the Fogel family -- parents Udi and Ruth, and their three children, Yoav (11), Elad (4), and Hadas (3 months) -- who were brutally stabbed to death in their sleep. Perhaps Frenkel omits this particularly odious atrocity (even by Palestinian standards) because it, more than anything else, undercuts the tit for tat lie.

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US spin: Israel is the problem

Fresnozionism.org
07 July '10

Here is an example of why I despair of most of our news media. I’m using an example from NPR, whom I beat up on regularly, but it could be the AP, the cable networks, etc.

NPR’s Daniel Schorr explained why (a shocker) the ‘peace process’ is going noplace:

Most recently, while special envoy George Mitchell was striving to resume modest contact through so-called proximity talks, the tension was increased, first by the provocative announcement of new Jewish settlement activity at the moment Vice President Joseph Biden was in Jerusalem. Then the Israeli commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla of relief ships for blockaded Gaza…

The basic deadlock remains firm. Netanyahu will not accept a Palestinian state with its own defense capability. The Palestinians will not accept a Jewish state that nibbles away with settlements in occupied territory. But never mind, we are a long way from tackling these ancient deadlocks.

This is like vuvuzelas at a soccer game. The drone is always there and after awhile you stop paying attention to it. But it still makes you tired.

Let’s just look at some of what’s packed into this boring little report.

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