The Observer, March 28, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 22
Israel debate should be reasonable
To the Editor:
"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent; for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication goes forth as the dawn, and her salvation as a burning torch."
Written shortly after the ancient Hebrew people returned to their ancestral homeland from exile in Babylon, the prophet Isaiah claims that if the people of Judea heed his words, they will not be forsaken. While that promise went unfulfilled between the first century CE and 1948, the rebirth of the state of Israel gave the faithful around the world reason for hope. Since that time, Israel has grown rapidly, with a robust economy, liberal democracy, and a military that has won resounding victories in the last 60 years. This strength and status, however, has come at a price – the Palestinian minority has been repressed and segregated from mainstream Israeli society since the end of the Six Days' War in 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza strip, among other areas. Since 1990, Palestinians have been killed by the IDF and Israeli settlers at 3.7 times the rate that Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian militants. Among children, there are 6 Palestinian deaths for each Israeli. And this is only the beginning of the human rights disparity between the two peoples.
In spite of this evidence, Caleb Posner seems to be convinced that unless he takes up the mantle of a secular Isaiah, calling the people to stand for Israel, Jerusalem will fall again to foreign powers. I bring this up because on Monday, I found myself invited to a Facebook event asking me to "Protest Campus Anti-Semitism with the Case Western ZOA" – an event being organized by Mr. Posner. The issue at hand was the lecture given on Tuesday by Alison Weir, an American journalist and activist. Weir's assertion that the mainstream American media does not provide balanced coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict (an assertion that has been supported by scholarly studies at many institutions), according to Posner, will "enflame political tensions, and inspire baseless hatred on campus, which has repeatedly manifested itself as violent anti-Semitism this year."
While I wholeheartedly appreciate vigorous debate of controversial issues, slandering a journalist whose reporting you disagree with is not the proper way to conduct a debate, particularly when accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations of serious character flaws.
Brendan McGrail
Undergraduate student
