VOA's refusal to call Hamas attackers 'terrorists' helps to perpetuate violence

A few of my former colleagues at the Voice of America (VOA) sent out e-mails to conservative and liberal news outlets, urging them to expose how their current management has been trying to whitewash Hamas's war crimes against Israeli civilians, presenting terrorists as freedom fighters.

These whistleblowers wanted to alert Congress and the Biden administration that their managers and editors, especially in the central VOA English newsroom, have been trying to find excuses for Hamas's murders.

I see similar signs of indifference in private media in the face of antisemitic violence and the deliberate taking of innocent human lives. It makes me fear for the future of Western journalism and democracy. 

Even with that backdrop, I can never accept as normal how the U.S. tax-funded Voice of America covered the Oct. 7 terrorist attack and its aftermath. It is especially shocking to me how government-hired executives, editors and journalists at the Voice of America simply refused to see echoes of the Holocaust in the antisemitic Hamas murders of innocent human beings, particularly the murders of women and children. Their attitude, as reflected in their emails, represents the most troubling moral failure in U.S. government-funded journalism that will lead to more such murders of Jews and inspire more antisemitic attacks worldwide.

For at least a decade, some VOA journalists have been glorifying leftist terrorism as a struggle for freedom. Reading internal e-mails between senior VOA editors and correspondents made me ashamed that I once worked for this U.S. government-managed journalistic institution. 

I am still very proud of what anti-communist refugee journalists achieved at VOA during the Cold War — namely, the peaceful fall of Soviet and communist oppression in Eastern and Central Europe in the early 1990s. Under the right leadership, as during the Reagan administration, VOA can help overcome violence and oppression by peaceful means. 

How have today's reporters, editors and managers at the VOA, some of them highly praised and promoted by its current leaders, responded to the savage terrorism by Hamas? By urging that Hamas's propaganda be given a full play. One of the senior VOA correspondents advised in an email to editors: "We can do that. Per Hamas the aim of the attack was 'to free Palestinian prisoners, stop Israeli aggression on al-Aqsa Mosque, and to break the siege on Gaza.'"

There was yet another suggestion on how to spin the Hamas massacre story to suggest equivalency between Hamas's atrocities and the Israeli Army's military response: "I would also add the importance of mentioning victims from both sides and giving historical context that the conflict did not start on October 7. As an example: Israel has launched airstrikes on Gaza, killing 4,000 and displacing more than a million people, mostly Palestinian Arabs. The strikes are in response to Hamas' incursion on October 7, that killed 1,400 people in Israel and took 200 captive. The militant group's attack was done in retaliation for Israel's decades-long occupation."

The use of the term "incursion" to describe Hamas's unconscionable massacre of civilians says everything about the mindset of these U.S. federal government employees. One of the emails included an instruction that "VOA must never suggest that reporting the context in which terrorism takes place justifies terrorism in any way." But editors and journalists had other priorities. The final instruction to the VOA news staff left no doubt that Hamas members must not be called "terrorists" in VOA programs:

"In covering the Israel-Gaza war — or any other conflict — we need to remember VOA's commitment to fairness, neutrality and balance. We cannot favor one side over another or do anything that feeds even the perception of bias. The October 7 attacks on Israel may be described as terrorist attacks or acts of terror, but avoid calling Hamas and its members terrorists, except in quotes."

VOA suggested calling Hamas members "militants" or "fighters,"…"bearing in mind that the language including terrorism is often used to demonize individuals and groups with whom the speaker disagrees. Useful alternatives are militant group or militants or fighters. In this case, it would be the Hamas militant group or Hamas militants."

How sad that the Voice of America's management is so timorous about offending Hamas and its supporters. But then, they are also scared to offend Russia, Iran and China, so it is hardly a surprise.

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, VOA management instructed staff that "VOA's coverage should describe the actions of the militants — and their adversary or adversaries — fully and accurately, without taking sides." 

It did not occur to VOA's managers as odd that Hamas's "adversaries" are defenseless women and children who were raped, murdered and kidnapped. No one piped up to point out that Hamas murderers of children are not "fighters" but war criminals. And no one in the email chain suggested that Hamas is also to blame for the death of innocent Palestinians, including women and children — having not only expected but also aimed to trigger a military response from Israel.

The VOA and overarching U.S. Agency for Global Media management will argue that any congressional attempt to influence VOA coverage would undermine their journalistic independence. Fine. But American taxpayers and Congress are not obliged to pay the six-figure federal employee salaries of USAGM executives, whose most recent spectacular failure was in Afghanistan. They had 20 years and plenty of money to make a difference in that country, but in the end, they could not even see the coming takeover by the Taliban. As a result, they left hundreds of their employees stranded in Kabul.

They now want "neutrality" in news reporting about terrorists murdering women and children. And they want you to keep paying for it. 

The Biden administration, with support from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, can replace the agency's management — the same one that failed to protect its staff security and hired several propagandists for the Putin regime.

What is needed is a bipartisan effort to return the Voice of America, under new and competent leadership, to its role defined in VOA's charter of reflecting broad, mainstream democratic values based on uncompromising respect for human rights.

Ted Lipien was Voice of America's Polish service chief during Poland's struggle for democracy and VOA's acting associate director. He served briefly in 2020-2021 as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.