Letter to The Washington Post

From: Dr. Michael Berenhaus [mailto:mberenhaus@comcast.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:40 AMTo: 'letters@washpost.com'
Subject: letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

Martha Baine (Free for all March 15, 2008) complains that the lack of equal mention in The Washington Post of Israel's military strike which killed 5 Gazans, which garnered no coverage, and the story of the Palestinian "gunman" who murdered eight youths, which received front page coverage, is indication of coverage that is not balanced. Ms. Baine doesn't mention that the 5 Gazans who were killed were not ordinary noncombatants but terrorists shooting rockets at Israeli civilians, a recognized war crime. Is it that Ms. Baine can't tell the difference between students killed while going to school and the killing of terrorists who seek to murder Jewish women and children by firing rockets indiscriminately? Or is it that she feels that these are legally and morally equivalent?

The Washington Post chose to publish Baine's letter as balance to Yaffa Klugerman, who criticized the Post for saying that the murder of eight Jewish students "was reminiscent of a 1994 attack by Baruch Goldstein, a Jew who shot a group of Palestinians at prayer." The Goldstein murders were an aberration for Israeli/Jewish society. The seminary massacre was in keeping with 'normal' Palestinian practice, as seen in the hundreds of attacks (and thousands of aborted attempts) since the start of the Oslo "peace process" in '93, that have murdered more than 1,100 Israelis and wounded, often grievously, thousands more. There is no comparison.

The Post placement of Baine's propaganda piece relying on the glaring omission of the identity of the Gazans killed shows that false balance is a poor substitute for accuracy.

Michael Berenhaus