To the Editor:In the 1930s and even during the Holocaust, the most influential American media decided Nazi anti-Semitism was not news, and chose to ignore it, and even rationalize it. Today, our most influential radio station, tax-supported National Public Radio (NPR), has a policy of not reporting official Palestinian anti-Semitism, and even of rationalizing it. The rebirth of neo-Nazi anti-Semitism in Arab guise is the most important, most dangerous unreported story of the Middle East conflict.

Jeffrey Dworkin, NPR ombudsman, admits NPR reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict is one-sided and politically motivated. On Nov. 6, 2001, he announced,"We haven't moved beyond the simplistic view of a Third World liberation movement against oppressive Israelis."

Loren Jenkins, NPR foreign editor said, "Face it, those Jews are colonizers."

NPR is entitled to free speech. They are not entitled to financial support by Brandeis, or by anyone who cares about responsible, fair and accurate journalism.

Since Oslo, the Palestinian Authority has invented a new, broader form of Holocaust denial. According to them, not only did the Holocaust never happen, but Jews were never in Israel, and the Temple never existed on Temple Mount. Instead of reporting on this ominous trend, NPR is tailoring its reporting to support the denial.

NPR Jerusalem correspondent, Mike Shuster, said, "Jews believe there was a temple ... Jews say that the Temple Mount was the site of two ancient temples in the Jewish tradition ..." (Oct. 6, 2000) This is like saying Jews "believe" there was a Holocaust, or Americans "say" there was an American Revolution.

The official Palestinian Authority (PA) televised sermon told listeners to "have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them (Oct. 13, 2000)."

The number of NPR stories on Palestinian anti-Semitic sermons? Zero.

WBUR-FM Program Director, George Boosey said: "If an imam preaches hate every week, it's not news," in a meeting with delegation from conservative Temple Emunah in Lexington on Nov. 6, 2001.

The PA official map shows no Israel. It has been wiped off the map. Their school text books teach that "Palestine" stretches from Jordan to the sea. The new school books extol martyrdom to "recover" even one inch of Israel. School children are not taught that Jews ever had any history in Israel, even in Biblical times.
NPR reporter Linda Gradstein whitewashes the Palestinian textbooks as trying to teach "civic responsibility."

Dworkin insists that P.A. maps do include Israel. His source? "Linda Gradstein asked the Palestinian Minister of Education." (Nov. 6, 2001) When mailed the URL of the PA website that shows the official map with no Israel, Dworkin does not reply.
The PA has institutionalized neo-Nazi hate in their schools, summer camps and television programming for children. Children are taught to fear and hate Jews. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which teaches that Jews form an evil world-wide conspiracy, is a bestseller. Blood libel is accepted as fact. Hitler is publicly praised, and the Holocaust denied or celebrated.
The number of NPR stories on Palestinian institutionalized anti-Semitism: One, in which they gave equal time to claims anti-Semitism is justified and ended with an image of an Israeli tank.

WBUR-FM General Manager Jane Christo said, when asked to report on institutionalized hate education: "You can't criticize us for what we don't report." (Nov. 6, 2001)

There have been over 14,267 terror attacks against Israelis since Arafat walked out of the Oslo peace negotiations. NPR has never reported this statistic. Instead, at each attack, they update the Palestinian and Israeli death toll, equating Jews killed in self-defense or innocently living their lives with the Palestinian rioters, gunmen, and suicide bombers killed in the act of murder or attempted murder.

WBUR-FM Program Director, George Boosey said, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." (Nov. 6, 2001)
Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun with an anti-Israeli bias who appears on NPR regularly, describes the Temple Mount as a wholly Arab site, "great" "famous" and "holy," and the Western Wall as the Jewish religious site, "one of the sort of escarpment banks leading up to the Temple Mount." (Oct. 16, 2000)

There have been many complaints to NPR by outraged individuals, by the media watch group, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), by Jewish Federations in Cleveland and Atlanta and others. Our complaints of incomplete, politicized and inaccurate NPR reporting have fallen on deaf ears. NPR's advocacy reporting against Israel is not in error. It is their policy.

Thus, this summer, NPR ran a segment reporting an unsubstantiated Palestinian claim that Israeli army snipers are murdering sewer repairmen in Gaza (Aug. 31). NPR didn't give themselves a semblance of professional standards by including a rebuttal from the Israelis. After much criticism, they issued a regret on their web-page only, acknowledging that the story was one-sided. There is no regret they are reporting hateful unsubstantiated nonsense as if it were news.

Every radio station has a free speech right to broadcast their own political agenda, but not funded by taxpayer money, and not using the legitimacy of being National Public Radio. The law funding them requires that NPR news be fair and balanced. The rest of us have a responsibility to use our free speech to expose NPR's abuse of power and to counteract their anti-Zionist propaganda. It is our free speech right to tell people we know not to send them money, and to speak to our congressmen and ask them to meet with NPR chief Kevin Close and require that NPR change their biased editorial policy or lose federal money.

Let us remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King: "And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism ... Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews -- make no mistake about it."

-- Karin McQuillan '71