NPR let its anti-Israel agenda fly in two very different stories Friday, one from the United Nations General Assembly, the other a tribute upon the death of a radical Palestinian painter. An NPR.org story bylined by Kat Lonsdorf and Kate Bartlett, based on a Friday Morning Edition segment carried a hostile headline: “Netanyahu rages against critics, including Mamdani, at the U.N. General Assembly.”
And why would Israel’s prime minister do that? Don’t ask NPR. No context was given regarding the United Nation’s historically hostile and relentless focus on Israel (remember "Zionism Is Racism"?), and its particular loathing of Benjamin Netanyahu, prejudices so all-encompassing that some consider the U.N. operationally anti-Semitic. Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has justified the October 7 massacre, compared Netanyahu to Hitler, and whined about America’s “Jewish lobby.”
Protesters rallied outside the United Nations building in New York and many delegates inside walked out of the room as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a fiery address to the General Assembly, denying allegations of genocide and slamming his critics, including the city's mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani is more than a “critic,” given his call for the arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu as a war criminal during his mayoral campaign.
NPR left off Netanyahu’s salient point of stopping the war to administer polio vaccinations to Gazan children, a detail that all by itself puts a crimp in the “genocide” lie.
The Israeli leader called Mamdani, New York's first Muslim mayor, "antisemitic."
"Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can't silence me, and you can't silence the truth," Netanyahu said in his speech.
In a statement responding to Netanyahu's criticism, Mamdani dismissed the Israeli leader's speech as "baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide against Palestinians."
The reporters blocked pro-Israeli arguments at every turn:
The Israeli leader's comments came after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered his address via a recorded video. The Trump administration had denied a visa to Abbas, on the grounds that the Palestinian leadership is undermining the prospects for peace, even though Abbas has been consistent in his call for a settlement with Israel. It's the second year in a row the U.S. has denied Abbas a visa for the assembly.
In his address, Abbas condemned Israeli actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and again called for a two-state solution. "We seek a democratic Palestinian state that respects the rule of law and human rights, a non-militarized state that lives in security and peace alongside the state of Israel," he said.
Short memory alert: Handed the golden opportunity for a state, former PLO leader Yassir Arafat instead went on a terror spree against Israel. But NPR still seeks to push the propaganda that Palestinian leadership seeks peaceful coexistence.
NPR also allowed Abbas to play the “genocide” libel against Israel, a nasty attempt to weaponize the Holocaust against Jews.
Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has been a major topic of the week, as several world leaders have used their speeches to bluntly criticize Israel's conduct. A U.S.-mediated truce between Israel and Hamas has been in place since last October, but Israel has continued its attacks. More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire agreement, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health authorities.
Perhaps because Hamas won’t disarm as required under the ceasefire agreement?
Increasingly isolated, Netanyahu's combative address comes as he faces an election next month that will decide if he remains prime minister.
From New York City to East Jerusalem: Saturday’s All Things Considered ran a story by Lauren Frayer, the last reporter to visit radical Palestinian painter Sliman Mansour before his death.
Born the year before Israel's creation, Sliman Mansour spent his life painting the faces and landscapes of Israeli occupation….He portrayed characters with agency — what Palestinians call sumud, Arabic for steadfastness or perseverance — through an era when their real-life rights have been eroded, and worse.
Frayer’s interview included this loaded question: “In your paintings, women have agency, people have power. I wonder if that's intentional, at a time when Palestinian people have been stripped of their rights.”
As always, attention was granted solely to Palestinian suffering in Gaza, without mentioning such the suffering was caused by the leaders they elected and who maintain support there, given their joy after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
