A timely message about "O little town of Bethlehem" -- tightly in the grip of Israeli/US occupation

by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.

[Mazin Qumsiyeh, an Associate Professor at Yale University School of Medicine, is widely acknowledged as one of the top experts on Palestinian refugee rights. He is author of Sharing the Land of Canaan: a vision based on human rights for Israelis and Palestinians, which explores the history and current efforts towards creating a pluralistic democracy in Israel/Palestine (book in press by Pluto).

Qumsiyeh is active in a number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Peace Action, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, and others. He resides in Connecticut, where he is Vice President of the Middle East Crisis Committee. In addition, Qumsiyeh volunteers and participates with several other local groups, including We Refuse to be Enemies (Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others in dialogue and constructive work).]

ACTION: Please write to all media outlets to explain (politely but firmly) the realities of Israeli occupation and colonization funded by US taxpayers.

This is especially relevant now as media is focusing on Christmas and Bethlehem. Many in the media do not give any context and try to distort the message of the oppression in the city of Jesus's birth. Today, Linda Gradstein of NPR was a good example of this when she reported from Bethlehem. Please do write to the media outlets even before and after they do their "reporting".

Below is my letter to NPR and a letter to CNN (ahead of their reporting). For talking points and resources see: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/aseasonofmayhem/ and
http://www.al-awda.org/christmas/

Just today five Palestinians were murdered and we sent 11 million US $ to support the occupation. Silence is complicity.

"In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good." Mahatma Gandhi

Sent to:
ombudsman@npr.org, lgradstein@npr.org,
ljenkins@npr.org, gsmith@npr.org

Dear National Public Radio:

As a Palestinian Christian, I feel betrayed by NPR today. In today's report on Bethlehem and Christmas, Linda Gradstein seems to have become an expert at word craftsmanship. How would we explain that in reporting at the city of Jesus's birth during Christmas, we fail to hear that since 1967 this city like other Palestinian cities (another thing she seems to manage to obfuscate) has suffered from an illegal military occupation accompanied by a colonial settler program. Selectively quoting from those Gradstein identifies as Christian (but not saying they are Christian Palestinians!!) while not once allowing the mention of the Israeli occupation amounts to breach of Journalistic ethics.

Gradstein then manages to weave a story that makes it look like everything was fine in Bethlehem and for Christmas until the latest Palestinian uprising of four years ago. This is preposterous. Between 1967 to 2000, the illegal Israeli occupation and colonial settlement activity decimated the life of both Christians and Muslims in Bethlehem. Even during what Gradstein described in another report as the years of peace (1993-2000), the number of Jewish colonialists/settlers grew from 200,000 to 400,000 living on Palestinian lands.

The grim and untold (on NPR) reality is that during the past 37 years Israeli occupation forces (funded by our tax money) engaged in home demolitions, land confiscation, expulsions, imprisonment, torture, economic strangulation, and movement restrictions among other violations of the 4th Geneva convention and International law. Many listeners have repeatedly complained about Gradstein's coverage and you still employ her; and her editors (and the ombudsman) keep brushing off such issues. Isn't it time you employ someone a bit less ideologically driven?

More relevant, isn't it time for NPR to tell the listeners the truth about where their tax money is going and about the US disastrous foreign policy? (Europeans identified Israel ad the US as the two states most endangering world peace.)

I await your response.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD


Example of [a second] letter (proactively) sent thru webforms at
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/
forms/form1.html?33
and to wolf@cnn.com .

Dear CNN:

How will you and other media outlets cover the reality of Bethlehem in this Christmas season? Will it be sloppy journalism or hard hitting facts?

The house I was born in is in the biblical Shepherds' field; literally down the hill from the Church of Nativity where tradition holds Jesus was born. As a Palestinian Christian who is now a US citizen, I watched with agony as the talks of a "peace process" come and go while Israel's illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine intensifies and is supported by the US government.

Will you mention that our taxes are used to demolish Palestinian homes and build Jewish only settlements and roads on Palestinian land and to buttress the 6th strongest army in the world?

Will you mention that 70% of Bethlehem residents are unemployed and 30% live below the poverty line while we give a neo-apartheid Israel several billion dollars of our taxes every year and shield it from International law (38 US vetoes at the UN)?

Will you mention the apartheid wall isolating Jerusalem from its suburbs (including Bethlehem)?

Will you mention that under US governmental patronage, an idyllic land of milk and honey was transformed into a police state with ghettos for a shrinking native population of Palestinian Christians and Muslims (2/3rds are now refugees or displaced people)?

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org


Sign the petition of the Council for National Interest: Hold Israel Accountable
http://www.cnionline.org/speakout/
petitions/petition.htm

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