An Islamic extremist explodes a bomb amidst a crowd of civilians on March 4th, killing more than 20, including himself. Less than a day later another Islamic extremist explodes a bomb on a civilian bus, killing more than 15, including himself. Parallel stories, but not covered in a parallel way on National Public Radio.
The response of the student newspaper and the administration to provocative, but accurate, pro-Israel ads and to an anti-Semitic letter full of lies, is a lesson in moral confusion.
In a campus atmosphere hostile to Israel, how can pro-Israel students effectively convey their message? The key is to tailor the message to the student audience, a heterogenous group of different backgrounds and opinions.
At rallies, demonstrations and other charged events at campuses across North America, pro-Israel students have faced harassment, at times violent, from their pro-Palestinian counterparts. These students have legal options and other means of recourse.
At Yale, Amiri Baraka discusses his controversial poem which suggests Israel had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks. Students expose his ignorant views.
As Israel went to the polls in January, a surge of news stories appeared about the lives, attitudes and voting patterns of its Arab citizens. All too many were boiler-plate recitations of charges that Israeli Arabs are understandably aggrieved and deeply alienated from their country because of its alleged discriminatory policies.
In the final segment of its seven part series on Middle East history, National Public Radio covered the so-called second Palestinian Intifada. As in the previous segments, NPR once again offered up a highly skewed lineup of experts, with critics of Israel heavily represented and pro-Israel voices virtually absent.
More than a year ago (2001-2002), BBC posted on its Web site several profiles of Middle Eastern leaders and groups. The profiles whitewashed Palestinian terrorist figures while, at the same time, harshly disparaging the Israeli prime minister. Despite letters to BBC about its unfair and biased features, the profiles remain unrevised on the Web site. Unfortunately, the misinformation in these features has been quoted and repeated as fact in English language newspapers across the world. For BBC to post such blatantly biased profiles is a violation of its own ethical code of impartiality, accuracy and fairness.
The New York Times finished off 2002 with a bang in its coverage of Israel. On December 28th a page-four story (“Dreaming of Palestine, Teenager Writes a Novel”) and a large smiling photo of Randa Ghazi brought readers a breezy profile of the Egyptian-Italian teenage authoress of a virulent anti-Israel novel.