IMRA distributed Dr. Michael Widlanski’s translations of the official Palestinian Authority’s PBC Voice of Palestine Radio coverage of the murder of seven-year-old Noam Leibovitch, when the PBC described it on its Wednesday morning 7:30 a.m. morning news round-up as “the death by shooting of a female Israeli settler” [Arabic: Maqtal ‘ala rasass mustawtinna isra’iliyya].

There was no Palestinian Authority condemnation of the murder nor even vague disapproval of the timing of the attack.

During the 8 a.m. Wednesday morning news bulletin, The Voice of Palestine, after detailing Israeli military actions and Palestinian diplomatic activities for seven minutes, noted “the death by shooting of a female settler…”

There was still no hint of condemnation nor disapproval of the shooting murder of the 7-year-old.child.

Israel Government Radio News,Israel Government Channel One TV News, Israel Commercial Channel Two News, Israel Commercial Channel Ten News and the Israel Armed Forces Radio News would not report how the PBC justified the murder of a seven year girl.

Our agency dispatched a fax to ask Shalom Oren, the head of Israel Government Radio News, Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel Goverrnent Channel One TV News, Shalom Kital, the head of Israel Commercial Channel Two News, Ram Landes, the head of Israel Commercial Channel Ten News and Zvikah Goldberg. the head of Israel Armed Forces Radio News as to why their respective news departments refused to cover the fact that the Palestinian Authority justified the murder of a seven year girl.

No response was received from any of the five news departments.

However, we have received confirmation that the head of Ariel Sharon’s bureau, Adv. Dov Weisglass, reported to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations that the Israeli government hoped to reach a “tolerable level of terrorist attacks”.

Weisglass’s report comes of the heels of the reported Hamas agreement to carry out only “small scale attacks at this time”.

The question remains whether the murder of a seven year old girl would fit the Weisglass criteria of a “tolerable level of terrorist attacks” and/or the Hamas criteria of “small scale attacks at this time”.

Dr. Widanski also reported that the PBC radio praised the suicide murderer of Avner Mordecai on the morning of Thursday, June 19th and that the Israeli electronic media would not report the PBC praise of the murder.

Dr. Hanan Naveh, senior news editor for the Voice of Israel Radio News, said that he would not use these news items since they come from “external sources”. Dr.Naveh also mentioned that the Voice of Israel had dropped its program for monitoring the Arabic media and asked if anyone would like to fund it…

This piece ran in Makor Rishon, June 20, 2003

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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