Dear Editor,
The article published on Thursday in the News section entitled "Friends of Israel Ad Causes Controversy" was a striking example of questionable journalism, which has no place in the Daily's coverage of campus events.
First off, let's start with the extremely misleading headline. While, granted, headlines are supposed to be somewhat sensationalist in order to grab readers' attention, this one went far beyond any reasonable level of journalistic accuracy. Anyone who read the article can clearly see that if anyone was at fault, it was the group of Senators who may or may not have acted against the Senate's bylaws. But this would have been just as true if they had signed any petition without a Senate vote. The fact that it was a pro-Israel petition had very little to do with the actions in question. So the fact that the Daily decided to publish this story under this headline is extremely confusing (not to mention that, while this letter was being written, the Daily's website has the article titled Friends of Israel Causes Controversy).
The tactic of trying to capitalize on the recent pro and anti-Israel sentiment on campus following Israel Peace Week and Israel Apartheid Week, in order to hype up a front page story, is not surprising. Unfortunately, in this instance, it is particularly insensitive. One of the most common diatribes leveled against Pro-Israel American Jews is that, through organizations such as AIPAC, they are trying to "buy" Congressional support for Israel. By casting the Senators' actions through the lens of Friends of Israel's petition, rather than the Senators themselves, the Daily inadvertently invokes this falsehood.
But my second issue with the article is its use of quotes from Cory Faragon, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The Daily's rash decision to go to a member of Friends of Israel's counterpart on campus reinforces the accusation implied by the headline. But even had FOI been at fault, the use of Cory Faragon's opinion in a non-opinion peace would have been just as absurd. Just the other day he co-wrote an op-ed voicing his strong opinions on Israel's supposed apartheid. He was also quoted last week in an article detailing an SJP event, where he also spoke out against Israel. If the Daily insists on consistently using what is very clearly a biased and anti-Israel opinion every time Israel is mentioned in an article you might want to consider adding him to the Masthead.
Sincerely,
Itai Thaler
Class of 2014
