Uninformed Balance with Guy Raz

Yesterday and today NPR's All Things Considered presented views from the Arab and Jewish communities around Dearborn, Michigan. This could have been a great opportunity to present the ugly facts of Israel's war on Lebanon and to ask some hard questions of all people interviewed. In Tuesday's report Raz talks to Lebanese and Arab Americans about the war. Raz says, "the conflict that has left parts of Lebanon in ruins has had immesurable impact on this community...but it has also coarsened some of the rhetoric in this city...." Raz then questions Osama Siblani of The Arab American News about Hezbollah's designation by the State Department as a terrorist organization and asks, "Would you agree?" to which he says, "I totally disagree the terrorist in here is the Bush administration." Is this the coarsened rhetoric? Raz also focuses on the anger of some Lebanese who compare Israel's actions with Nazi Germany. Why instead doesn't he focuse on the substance of war crime activities that Israel is doing? Why no hard numbers: about 1,000 civilians killed, over a million (one quarter of the Lebanese population) displaced (cleansed), massive infrastructure destroyed.

Today's report has Raz speaking to the Jewish community near Dearborn. Raz asks none of the Jewish people inteviewed if they support "collective punishment" or complete forced depopulation of civilian areas, or blockades of humanitarian relief, etc. Instead he focuses on issues of "self defense," Holocaust memories, and repeating the lie that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." (a gross mistranlation)