California Public Radio Host Enables Anti-Israel Provocateur

Warren Olney, popular southern California radio personality, host of To the Point, distributed to public stations by Public Radio International (PRI), moderated a discussion on his show entitled “American Jews and Faith in Israel” on April 17.

The discussion consisted of what had been essentially a balanced debate between journalist Peter Beinart (advocates maximum accommodation to Palestinian Arab demands in order to achieve a formal peace agreement) and Daniel Gordis, vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center (opposes Beinart’s view) until shortly after midway in the segment, when anti-Israel provocateur Rae Abileah entered the broadcast with a lengthy rant including the canard that Israel “routinely denies human rights to Palestinians.”

Abileah’s tirade elicited no response from either Beinart or Gordis, nor were they prompted to do so by Olney. A newly arrived guest, pro-Israel student activist Aaron Taxy, provided only a mild and brief response.

Olney not only provided Abileah with an unchallenged propaganda platform but also with the last word of the discussion. Abileah’s closing polemics included histrionics regarding American military aid to Israel, which she charged is an issue “to American taxpayers today on tax day.” Such a claim disregards the fact that aid to Israel, roughly $3 billion in the $3.6 trillion federal budget, amounts to less than 0.1 percent of government spending and has been absent from political rhetoric in recent campaigns. She also alleged that U.S. military aid is mainly used to support what she falsely claims is “daily segregation and oppression” of Palestinian Arabs. Arabs in the Gaza Strip are ruled by a Hamas-led government that attempts to impose stricter Islamic practices; the daily lives of those in the West Bank are administered by the Palestinian Authority. West Bank Arabs can come into contact with Israeli troops attempting to halt anti-Israel terrorism. Those forces, that have aborted many attempted attacks, are not “segregating” or “oppressing” West Bank Arabs.

Furthermore, Olney’s audience was not told that, as Richard Baehr, chief political correspondent for the American Thinker Web site, and others have pointed out, one-side blaming of Israel for the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement has been a profitable career move for Beinart and others in academia and the news media who hold similar views.

To listen to the 35-minute discussion, click here (the discussion’s audio time line in this 51-minute broadcast clip is 7:25 to 42:10).

PRI can be contacted here; Warren Olney can be contacted here.