Earl Blumenauer: “we of the Public Broadcasting Caucus are pleased to share with our colleagues this evening some very good news from the…”

“we of the Public Broadcasting Caucus are pleased to share with our colleagues this evening some very good news from the world of public broadcasting. The Overseas Press Club has presented NPR with the 2002 Lowell Thomas Award for the series ``The Mideast: A Century of Conflict.'' This groundbreaking seven-part series, which aired on NPR's Morning Edition last fall, tells the history of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Veteran NPR News correspondent Mike Shuster researched, reported, and chronicled this in-depth series on the key moments in the history of the struggle between the two peoples. It covered the early Zionist movement during the turn of the 20th Century and traced the intensifying conflict between Jews and Palestinians during the years of the British mandate, leading up to David Ben-Gurion's announcement of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Mideast: A Century of Conflict,'' also explored the events that led up to the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the first Intifada, and the Oslo Peace Process. It concluded with investigations on the reason why the Oslo Peace Process collapsed and how and why the second Intifada started. Kevin Klose, NPR's president and CEO, put it best when he said, ``This series tells the history of the confrontation using radio to bring the views of leading historians of the region to air, documenting the deep and conflicting roots of today's Middle East.…”