On April 3, National Public Radio’s own “public editor” admitted the network had ignored Jewish voices after the nearly deadly attack on children in a Michigan synagogue by a man whose two brothers in Lebanon, Hezbollah terrorists, were killed by Israel, while running sympathetic stories from his hometown.
It’s part of a pattern of NPR's regional coverage, blaming Israel itself for attacks on Jews, while downplaying or ignoring the workings of Hezbollah, the Iranian-financed terrorist group that controls large parts of Lebanon.
NPR Morning Edition co-host Leila Fadel (who grew up in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia) talked on April 2 to Dr. Firass Abiad, who “helped the country navigate the start of Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2024.” He accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” without any challenge from Fadel, making host Steve Inskeep’s tacked-on proclamation at the end that “we cover all sides of this story” woefully wrong, even before Inskeep’s clear distrust of Israel’s stance:
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Of course, we cover all sides of this story and asked Israel's military if it is targeting Lebanon's health care facilities. The military said it, quote, "targets only military targets" and asserted, quote, "Hezbollah systematically exploits ambulances, medical teams and medical facilities for terrorist activity," though the Israelis did not cite examples. The Israeli government did not respond to Dr. Abiad's assertion that Israel is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing.
Weekend Edition Sunday ran another story April 5 confidently painting Israel as at best reckless and at worst murderers of “medics” in Beirut, while again skimming over the involvement of the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah: “Dozens of medics in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks.”
Dozens of paramedics in bright red uniforms shuffle around a coffin. The victim is one of their own.
Youssef Assaf, a volunteer paramedic with the Lebanese Red Cross, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on March 9, while on a rescue mission in Majdal Zoun, southern Lebanon. His funeral drew hundreds of first responders, marching in a seaside procession in the Mediterranean city of Tyre, his mother's cries heard over the shuffle.
Lebanon's government says at least 54 health workers are among more than 1,400 people killed by Israel during the current invasion. Some human rights groups say first responders are being targeted — something Israel denies.
....
The Israeli military tells NPR it targeted a "Hezbollah military-use building" that day, and that "some people" arrived in the area "in the seconds between when the munitions were fired and the moment of impact," but were not intentionally targeted. Israeli troops "were unaware of the presence of Red Cross personnel in the area and certainly did not intend to strike them," the military said.
One subhead gave the slant away: “A pattern of attacks on medics,” as did NPR’s dubious (repeat) source.
"It's very clear that there is targeting of healthcare personnel, first responders and healthcare facilities," Dr. Firass Abiad, Lebanon's former minister of public health, tells NPR's Morning Edition. "When you have 10 first responders killed within a period of almost 24 hours, it's very difficult to say this is an accident."
Abiad was accused of ignoring Hezbollah in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet, which accused he and his colleagues of making “an unsubstantiated claim that the Israel Defense Forces targeted health-care facilities. At the same time, they ignore the role of Hezbollah in initiating a sustained missile attack against Israel.”
Buried by NPR in paragraph 17: The inconvenient fact that those killed worked for Hezbollah’s own ambulance service, which rather saps the power from the headline accusation.
The majority of first responders killed in this war have been with units run by Islamic political groups, including Hezbollah, which has its own ambulance service. Unlike the Red Cross, it does not notify Israel of its movements.
