The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has called for the resignation of National Public Radio (NPR) senior executive, Ron Schiller, after he was caught by concealed camera dining with two men posing as members of an American affiliate of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, nodding, agreeing with and not repudiating anti-Semitic remarks put to him by the two men. In a video released today, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, were posing, using the names Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik, as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group, the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC), which even has a contrived website which states that its mission is combating “intolerance to spread acceptance of Sharia across the world.” In the lunch meeting, when the man posing as Kasaam suggests to Schiller that “Jews do kind of control the media or, I mean, certainly the Zionists and the people who have the interests in swaying media coverage toward a favorable direction of Israel,” Schiller does not rebut him or stop eating. He just nods his head slightly. Then, when Kasaam jokes that his friends call NPR, “National Palestinian Radio,” because, according to him, NPR is the only media outlet that covers Palestinians’ perspective. Schiller laughed. When the fake Islamists say that they’re “not too upset about maybe a little bit less Jew influence of money into NPR,” Schiller wasn’t offended by their crudely anti-Semitic language. Instead, he simply replied that NPR receives very little Jewish or pro-Zionist money before adding, “I mean it’s there [Jewish, pro-Zionist influence] in those who own newspapers, obviously, but no one owns NPR.”

Schiller also claimed liberals are more intellectual and intelligent than conservatives, that Tea Party members are racists, not “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.” When told that MEAC contributes to a number of Muslim schools across the U.S. and “was originally founded by a few members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America actually,” Schiller has no negative reaction to the news that this Islamist movement, which was the precursor of Al-Qaeda, calls for implementation of sharia law world-wide and which has produced terrorist movements in the Middle East, is funding schools in the U.S. and that his interlocutors are claiming to represent an organization allegedly founded by it. Schiller also says that what he is “most disappointed by in this country, which is that the educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population, so that you have this very large un-educated part of the population that carries these ideas” (Matthew Boyle, ‘NPR executives caught on tape bashing conservatives and Tea Party, touting liberals,’ Daily Caller, March 8, 2011).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We call on all decent people, especially American Jews, to stop contributing to NPR. Ron Schiller should be fired immediately. The video evidence demonstrates conclusively that he agreed with and did not challenge crudely anti-Semitic observations puts to him about Jewish and Zionist control of the media – a pernicious and also absurd idea, given the harsh and biased coverage which has been Israel’s lot for decades. Moreover, Schiller showed himself to have no problem meeting with people explicitly holding themselves out as being Islamists who want to implement sharia law. Schiller also showed that he had no problem with NPR being perceived as a vehicle for Palestinian propaganda and being more pro-Palestinian than the rest of even the liberal media, indicating a complete lack of genuine impartiality, which might explain at least some of the biased anti-Israel coverage which appears on NPR.

“Earlier this year, NPR fired Juan Williams for merely stating his honest feeling that, in view of Islamist terrorist assaults on civilian airliners, he feels some discomfort when identifiably devout Muslims stand in line to board the same plane on which he is travelling. Williams was not being bigoted about Muslims, he was speaking of justifiable concerns about Muslim terrorists. Yet, he was fired because it was said that he had given intolerable offense. If that is the case – and the ZOA thinks this is nonsense – then Schiller should certainly be fired for giving far, far greater offense to Jews and others. Ironically, Schiller speaks on this tape supporting the firing of Juan Williams on the ground that NPR would have lacked credibility from this point on in allowing Williams to address issues relating to Muslims. Well, Schiller’s conduct is genuinely offensive and indicates that NPR lacks all credibility in addressing issues of Jewish concern, especially if it continues to employ him.”