Guardian Coverage Biased Against Palestine

Dear Editor,

Your abysmal coverage of Justice in Palestine Week and the Horowitz fiasco reeks of Hearstian and Horowitzian journalism.

While you sought to clarify my answer in your May 20 article entitled “Students Clash Anew Over Israeli-Palestinian Conflicts,” you chose not to qualify it with my position. I will do you a favor and quote it from my statement directly. “My opinion of Hamas is not as simple as condemn or condone, for it or against it. I firmly believe that the killing of civilians, even as collateral damage regardless of creed, politics, sexuality, nationality or ethnicity is one of the highest crimes in the eyes of God and is morally reprehensible and abhorrent.”

Secondly, Hezbollah is not a Palestinian faction — it is Lebanese. Hamas (regardless of its designation as a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S.) is neither genocidal nor Holocaust-denying. This is simply evident in Yale University’s copy of Article 20 of the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which analogizes Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi treatment of Jews, and Article Six, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state where people of all religions can coexist in peace. Your fact-checking should at least consist of Googling either organization’s name.

Young Americans for Freedom chairwoman Gabriella Hoffman is quoted saying that she feels hurt that I would want to kill her and other Jews. Barzilay claims that the apartheid wall makes her feel “alienated” and demands that I apologize. These individuals have no right to speak of hurt, alienation or apology whatsoever. It was Hoffman, acting as chair of Young Americans for Freedom, who invited and introduced David Horowitz. It was Barzilay’s organization, Tritons for Israel, which initially tri-sponsored the event and had many of its members in attendance. Those students were not threatened or preoccupied by my supposed “racist” sentiments. When I left, one member followed me out, brushed aside my attempts at clarification and admitted that she knew I had misspoken, given Horowitz’s reputation.

Horowitz was not invited to present any argument or engage in constructive dialogue — rather, he was brought because of his reputation for racism and hatemongering against Arabs and Muslims. If anyone can claim alienation or marginalization, it’s me. For the university to allow him to set foot on my campus using my student fees is a slap in my face and a slap in the face of all other non-Jewish minorities on this campus. Need more proof? Google this article: “Guns Don’t Kill Black People, Other Blacks Do.” Tell me: Who needs to apologize now?

As far as the sense of “alienation” that the apartheid wall heralds: The panels and speakers criticized the Israeli government, not the Jewish people. Professors and lecturers at this university urge us to examine our own government. Why should the university or A.S. Council entertain the notion that the Israeli government is holier than our own and beyond reproach?

The voices of the Palestinian people have been silenced by the mainstream media for too long, and I refuse to silence my own voice to appease the twisted politics of the pro-Israel communities on and off campus. 

— Jumanah Albahri

Sophomore, Muir College

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