Editorial offends Jewish community
We write in response to last Friday’s Lantern editorial, “Hey parents, check this out.” The editorial board’s analogy of the OSU campus area to the Gaza Strip not only illustrated the board’s ignorance of the Middle East but was also deeply offensive to the Jewish community.First, Israeli troops no longer patrol Gaza – they are confined to protecting a few small villages along the Israel-Gaza border. It is now Arafat’s police – not Israeli soldiers – who patrol Gaza City and 99% of the Gaza Strip.Second, the primary reason Israeli troops were ever in Gaza to begin with is because Israel’s neighbors have the annoying habit of periodically invading Israel with the intention of wiping it off the face of the earth. Many Palestinians have shown a similarly annoying habit of blowing up Israeli civilians on school buses and at vegetable markets. To call Israel a “ruthless regime” when it is only attempting to protect families and communities from this violence dehumanizes the victims of such violence and shows contempt for the rights of children to go to school or families to go to the market without losing their limbs and their lives.That the editorial board of the Lantern felt it necessary to make such a dehumanizing attack on Israelis and Jews, in the context of what was ostensibly a light-hearted piece on campus life, is deeply disturbing and offensive.
Stephen A. Silver third-year law studentMichael B. Kass second-year law student
