Emergency vehicles in the parking lot of Temple Israel as American, Israeli and Michigan state flags blow in the wind following an active shooter incident at the Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., on March 12, 2026. Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images.
by Jennifer Kouzi
(CAMERA) — NPR has been on a longstanding deception campaign, at least with regard to its reporting on Israel. Its formula is simple: say something not factually incorrect, while omitting critical context, so that it necessarily leads listeners or readers to the desired – but wrong – conclusion. The preferred narrative often comes in the form of whitewashing terrorism. CAMERA has written extensively about NPR’s penchant for this formula, including having uncritically interviewed a Hamas leader twice, glorifying a terrorist because he was an author, and most recently, omitting any reference to the IRGC’s terrorism. How would other marginalized communities feel if NPR so warmly welcomed actors who wanted them dead?
But with its unabashed sympathy piece on the man who perpetrated a terror attack on a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, NPR officially crossed the Rubicon.
While it has has done little to hide its affection for Israel’s enemies, NPR listeners and readers were no doubt left dumbfounded by its excusal of an attempted terror attack – which could have killed 140 preschoolers – on American soil.
On Mar. 13, 2026, NPR first reported that the day prior, Lebanese-born, naturalized American citizen, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, drove a truck into a Michigan synagogue, engaged in gunfire with security officers and died (NPR never updated its article to include that he died by a self-inflicted gunshot). While NPR reported authorities “did not provide the suspect’s motive,” NPR itself had no qualms about positing its own theory for his motive – it reported that several members of Ghazali’s family were killed in an Israeli strike on Mar. 5, 2026.
On Mar. 14, 2026, Hadeel Al-Shalchi took NPR to the point of no return. Her report was both heard on All Things Considered and read in an article entitled “In a small Lebanese town, grief and fear follow the Michigan synagogue attack,” which was updated on Mar. 15, 2026. The title alone was shocking. Americans should worry about the feelings in a small Lebanese town after a mass terror attack was attempted (but thankfully thwarted) on American soil? No stories on the impact of the attack on the preschoolers’ parents, the synagogue community or the injured first responders and security guard are found on NPR’s website.
Al-Shalchi traveled to the terrorist’s hometown in Lebanon. She spoke to Ghazali’s distraught uncle and saw the pile of rubble that used to be Ghazali’s younger brother’s home. She reported that many in the town she spoke with believe Ghazali committed the synagogue attack as “revenge” for the death of his two brothers, niece and nephew killed by an Israeli air strike.
In the article, but not in the radio broadcast, Al-Shalchi added that on Sunday [Mar. 15], Israel’s military said Ghazali’s brother Ibrahim was a Hezbollah commander, head of a unit responsible for launching hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. But there is little excuse for Al-Shalchi’s omission of Ghazali’s connections to Hezbollah in the Mar. 14, 2026, broadcast, given CBS reported his brothers were in Hezbollah on Mar. 13, 2026, and CNN reported on Mar. 13, 2026, that Ghazali “show[ed] up in federal databases as having connections . . . with Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
Even if she did not want to accept the CBS or CNN reporting, Al-Shalchi could have engaged in investigative reporting to ascertain the family’s ties to Hezbollah while on location, especially because her report mentioned that many in Ghazali’s hometown support Hezbollah. The only logical explanation is that Al-Shalchi was not actually in Lebanon to do any kind of journalism.
Presumably in an unhinged attempt to balance out the forced addition of the family connection to Hezbollah to the article, Al-Shalchi inserted the following (not heard on the broadcast): “[The uncle] remembers Ghazali as a kind, well-mannered and gentle person and says his nephew avenged the children’s deaths because they were so dear to him.”
This addition crossed the Rubicon. Is this how we are now describing Jew-hating, homicidal terrorists who tried to kill 140 preschoolers?
For the finale, Al-Shalchi said the mayor of Ghazali’s hometown was worried about retaliation on Lebanese now living in the U.S. who originate from the same town. A quote that was in the broadcast but oddly not included in the article was of the mayor saying, “Because revenge will bring more revenge from the other side and will not finish.”
“The other side” to whom the mayor referred are undoubtedly the Jews – those Ghazali attacked and tried to murder. Yet Al-Shalchi knows she would be unable to name a single instance of a Jewish person in the United States retaliating on a mosque or committing a retaliatory terror attack. Americans whose family members and friends were killed in Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, did not go and seek revenge on Palestinians in America after the massacre.
A murderous Jew hater with family ties to Hezbollah tried to kill 140 preschoolers at an American synagogue. NPR’s instinct was to travel to Lebanon to understand him and report on the grief felt in his hometown. NPR has not only crossed the line of no return, but has abandoned the basic moral compass that news consumers should demand from journalism.
Originally published by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
Author: Contributor
For more details on this author's background and expertise, please refer to the content within the article itself. The views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of geula.news or its affiliates.