So Just Who is Sheera Frenkel?

Something caught my ear in Sheera Frenkel's vacuous piece on the Palestinian Papers this morning. Discussing effect of the Palestinian Papers on Saeb Erekat, Frenkel says,

"Erekat says he resigned in disgrace, because of leaks someone in his own office provided to Al-Jazeera, the popular Arabic satellite news channel. Thousands of documents - nicknamed the Palileaks - revealed much about the peace talks over the last decade."

"Palileaks"? I'm a bit of a news junkie and follow developments in the Middle East, but I have never seen or heard the Palestine Papers described as the "Palileaks." I thought maybe I had missed something and did a Google search on the term. The results are quite interesting: almost all of them are pro-Zionist sources. The first two are telling: The Jerusalem Post (that Frenkel has written for) and the an article from CBN (the far-right Christian Broadcasting Network). Interestingly if you search "Palileaks" on Al-Jazeera or The Guardian (the two press outlets that actually released the Papers) you get nothing.

Sheera Frenkel has done some pretty awful reporting from Israel, and I want to know who this reporter is - you know, the basics: her education, what jobs has she held, has she done internships, etc. NPR has no bio on her, and I still haven't found anything substantive online, except that she has written for the Christian Science Monitor, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of London, and McClatchy. I did turn up two interesting bits on Frenkel: she has an article on the Christian-Zionist Frontline Israel website and in the PDF brochure from a Crossing Borders Media Conference, August 2007, in Bonn, she is identified as being from California and an Israeli citizen (which seems relevant for a reporter covering the Israel/Palestine conflict).

If anyone finds a legitimate and relevant bio of Sheera Frenkel and can send it to me, I'll post it here. Until then I'll drop a line to the Ombudsman and request that NPR at least provide the basics on Frenkel who is a frequent contributor.

As a postscript, I should note that back on January 25th, I posted on NPR's distorted coverage of the Palestinian Papers back when they were released. A few days later Lourdes Garcia-Navarro did a decent piece that looked at the Palestinian negotiators' disappointment in the Obama administration as revealed in the papers. But that's it, and the critiques of my first post remain valid: NPR has been mute on the major revelation of the Papers: the utter sham of the entire "peace process" which has only furthered the violent US-supported Israeli policy of colonizing the Occupied Territories and destroying the possibility of any meaningful Palestinian state.

When the Shit Hits the Fan - Make Brownies!

The bombshell release of The Palestine Papers by Al Jazeera and The Guardian hit the news this week and provide stark evidence of the moral bankruptcy of the Israeli government and the US government in the sham "peace process" - (not to mention the craven subservience and collaborative nature of the Palestinian Authority). As The Guardian editorialized

"It is hard to tell who appears worst: the Palestinian leaders, who are weak, craven and eager to shower their counterparts with compliments; the Israelis, who are polite in word but contemptuous in deed; or the Americans, whose neutrality consists of bullying the weak and holding the hand of the strong. Together they conspire to build a puppet state in Palestine, at best authoritarian, at worst a surrogate for an occupying force."

So what does NPR do when someone else has done all the work for them and hands them a huge trove of damming evidence?

First, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro did a decent job of reporting on reaction by the Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, and the Israeli government.

This modest piece was followed by a sad hodgepodge of spin from the awful Michele Kelemen - a story that the NPR scribe monkeys titled "Release of Palestinian Papers Raises Issues for the US." Raises issues!? Sheesh...

Melissa Block introduces the piece, asking "And how does the U.S. try to revive talks when all sides seem to be losing credibility?" as if the complete lack of US legitimacy and credibility has not been exposed in these documents. From there Michele Kelemen turns to Professor Kurtzer of Princeton who states that one thing the documents show is that the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians

"are far narrower than people would have assumed....therefore...the administration...now has evidence that the bridge can be built."

Kelemen then turns to - as she says -

"Another U.S. veteran of the peace process, Robert Danin, of the Council on Foreign Relations, cautions against reading too much into the documents."

Kelemen and NPR definitely take this advice to heart, and - instead of any scrutiny or critical assessment of these damning records of the US/Israel/PA attempt to destroy any hope of justice for Palestinians - opts to continue airing the views of other US official participants in the peace process sham. As if to drive the point home that the revelations will have no effect on Michele Kelemen and NPR's determination to echo the views of the US State Department, Kelemen allows State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley to have the final word:

"The best and only way to fundamentally resolve the core issues, reach an agreement and end the conflict once and for all is through a negotiation, not through unilateral statements, unilateral actions."

Unbelievably, it's not meant as some kind of sick joke...