Today, National Public Radio (NPR) did its best to promote a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by the Palestinian Authority, which has rejected negotiations with Israel in favor of a strategy of isolating Israel through the United Nations General Assembly and other international institutions.
Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep set the context for NPR’s coverage by whitewashing the long history of Palestinian war, terror, and rejection of statehood:
For Palestinians, the symbolism of this moment could hardly be better. Back in the 1940s, the United Nations approved the creation of Israel. A second state, a Palestinian state, never came into being…
Inskeep’s use of the passive voice is an attempt to avoid talking about the wars repeatedly waged by Palestinians and Israel’s Arab neighbors–first to prevent the creation of the Jewish state, then to destroy it. Palestinian leaders only belatedly, and reluctantly, embraced the “two-state solution”–but continue to deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Following Inskeep’s introduction, NPR aired a story by NPR’s Michele Kelemen about Palestinian diplomatic efforts at the UN, which repeated Palestinian complaints about “arm-twisting by Western diplomats and threats by U.S. congressmen to cut off aid to Palestinians,” but failed to mention reports that Muslim and Arab nations are using threats of “punitive measures” against countries that fail to vote for Palestinian statehood.
The story that followed, by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, was even worse. Garcia-Navarro, reporting from Jerusalem and the West Bank, attempted to show “both sides” of the argument by interviewing Palestinians who support the statehood bid, and Israelis who… also support the statehood bid.
To get an Israeli perspective, Garcia-Navarro explained, she went to a “Jewish market” in West Jerusalem. But no such thing exists. There is no Israeli market from which non-Jews are excluded; such apartheid fantasies are the province of Palestinian leaders who want to remove Jews (“Israelis,” they say, by way of clarification) from the future Palestinian state.
One of the reasons Congress is considering cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority is its repeated use of the public airwaves to demonize Israel and polarize opinion, such that peace becomes impossible. That is fast becoming an argument for de-funding NPR as well.
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