Before the Palestinians escalated their terrorist attacks and deliberate murder of Israeli women and children in October 2000, I used to listen to NPR (National Public Radio) quite often. Since then, I have experienced first hand NPR's bias, distortion of truth and support of Palestinian terrorism many times, causing my interest in the radio network and my donations to stop.

One of the programs I used to enjoy every weekend was "This American Life". Every week the producer of the show, Ira Glass, picks a topic and builds an episode using 2-3 stories from different writers and performers. It has a unique style, breaking from straight news reporting to more personal descriptions by the authors.

A radio show about Israel and the West Bank "This American Life", 8/2/2002

A few weeks ago, This American Life featured a show on Israel and the West Bank, called "Give It to Them". The bias is shown right there - the show's main page has with a big sticker with the Hebrew saying "Nahzir Lahem Veshalom al Israel". This literally means "We'll return it to them, and peace to Israel" - in other words, we'll react to their terrorist attacks and hit them back, and once we get rid of the Palestinian terrorists, we'll have peace.

Unfortunately NPR decided to translate it simply as "Give it to them" - showing that Israelis are the agressors, initiating the conflict. Further samples of bias were shown in the program when they interview two Israelis trying to decided if the Palestinians were born animals, or if they became animals through their culture of hate. In Hebrew, I could clearly see the Israelis were talking about the Palestinian terrorists and murderers, and not generalizing about all Palestinians - but NPR did not make that distinction. I personally don't care if the Palestinian murderers from Hamas and Islamic Jihad were born animals or were brainwashed by their Nazi-like propaganda - in either case they should be arrested or killed.

There's also the well known dumb leftist moral equivalency, where we are to think that the Palestinians murderers from the Islamic Jihad suffer as much as the Israeli women and children who are targetted in suicide bombings (the show starts with "two years in which each side has done terrible things to the other side..."). The show also interviews a religious 15-year-old Israeli kid who is racist and very anti-Palestinian, but as a typical NPR bias, we don't hear a word from any Palestinian from the Islamic Jihad or Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of her citizens. This clearly makes you think that the Palestinians are good people who want peace, while the Israelis wish only to kill and murder.

Now that I got a few things off my chest, this show is a good "This American Life" episode and if you have the time, check it out. The show is one hour long and you may access it by clicking on the image above or here. You'll need the Real Audio player. which you can get here for free.

Posted by David Melle
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