Letters to the Editor: May 3, 2010

Correctly representing the situation in Palestine

Regarding “Misrepresenting Israel” (Thursday, April 15, 2010):

I was saddened to read the recent letter from Tigers for Israel member Rivka Cohen ’12, in which she accused me and other Princeton students of “intellectual dishonesty.”

In the letter, Cohen faults us for mistakenly labeling Israel an “apartheid state.” In fact, we do no such thing. Instead, we argue that some of Israel’s policies in the West Bank are similar to those of apartheid. Indeed, the racial distinctions in the latter case are not the same as the ethnic differentiations between Jews and Arabs in the occupied territories, yet they are reasonably comparable.

Cohen’s point about Israel itself not having a system of separate and unequal infrastructures and legal systems is interesting, but completely unrelated to our article, as we were addressing differences between Jews and Palestinians within the West Bank, which are indeed the result of official Israeli policy. Hence, while Jews have a right to a lawyer, to vote, to move freely, and so on, Palestinians do not.

However, most inexplicable is the claim that our pamphlets were dishonest in that they had “no mention whatsoever of the reasons” Israel built the West Bank barrier. On the contrary, we explicitly indicated the reasons for building it on Palestinian lands, namely to annex them to Israel. They could have built it on the border instead, which experts say would have provided the most security.

Finally, it’s a shame that Cohen decided to question our integrity based on a mistaken quote that she knew full well (since I publicly apologized to TFI members for it) was accidental and not malicious.

This is undoubtedly a very contentious topic. Nevertheless, we should expect Princeton students to debate these issues in a civil manner, instead of resorting to defamatory personal accusations.

Ms. Cohen, you can do better.

Yoel Bitran ’11

President, Princeton Committee on Palestine

An unethical way to practice journalism

Regarding “Bipartisanship begins at home” (Wednesday, March 10, 2010):

I was very disappointed by the recent coverage of the cooperation between the Pride Alliance and the Anscombe Society on a petition against the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill. To an uninvolved party, this reads as a campus news item one of your columnists initiated in order to write a column about it — which is certainly not an ethical way to practice journalism. More importantly, framing another country’s violation of its citizens’ human rights as a story about student organizations at Princeton does nothing for the image of a University which claims to be “in the service of all nations.” I hope that readers will see beyond this contrived cooperation to the real story: that in 83 countries, it is still against the law to be gay, and that in seven countries, the state can execute you for it.

Emily Rutherford ’12