In Response to “OPINION: Israel/Hamas conflict is viewed in the wrong lens by American media”

This letter was submitted by three Ohio University alumni in response to the opinion piece written by Opinion Editor Marc Goldstein, “OPINION: Israel/Hamas conflict is viewed in the wrong lens by American media.” Please note that the views of this letter and in opinion pieces do not reflect those of The New Political.

Editor’s Note: This letter has been lightly edited for grammar and style.

Dear staff of The New Political,

As alumni of Ohio University, we have deeply respected The New Political during our time on campus. Whether we wrote for TNP directly or for other groups, we saw TNP as a strong media outlet with integrity and excellent reporting.

Sadly, we write to you today not in praise but in condemnation. "Israel/Hamas conflict is viewed in the wrong lens by American media," by Opinion Editor Marc Goldstein is a piece of writing that is, at best, poorly-researched and racist, and at worst, openly supporting an ongoing genocide. We are astounded that this piece was published by any organization at Ohio University –– and are ashamed that our alma mater is training journalists to write such hateful, ignorant and grossly misinformed work.

The claims that the land currently occupied by Israel was “an apology gift” from the United Nations and that “[i]srael is a land for the Jews'' completely ignores the violent settler-colonialism in which the land was taken from the Indigenous Palestinian people who have ancestry in the region tracing back thousands of years. Marc describes May 15, 1948, as the day of the “Israeli War of Independence,'' where Palestinians “were upset.”

But for the Palestinian people, this day is known as the start of “the Nakba,'' or “the catastrophe,” as it marks the first ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Israelis in which at least 750,000 Palestianians were forced from their homelands and another 15,000 murdered.

To ignore a century of occupation and colonization in historic Palestine is inhumane, and just lazy writing. And what of the ongoing violence against Palestinians on their own land, in not only Gaza but also the West Bank? What of the bombing of hospitals, of refugee camps, what of the white phosphorus used in not only Gaza but also in Lebanon in the past three weeks?

What of the denial of basic human needs like food, water, and energy –– effectively committing genocide –– while the whole world is fed propaganda such as that written by Marc Goldstein? What of the thousands of Palestinians arrested by the Israeli government who are currently being tortured without trial?

The broad generalizations and cheap shots toward Palestinians in this article are not only irresponsible, they're just plain racist. To claim that Hamas represents all of Palestine is also false –– the Palestinian Authority is in charge in the West Bank. While Hamas came into power of Gaza democratically in 2006, since then elections have been suspended. And with 70% of the population under the age of 30, the overwhelming majority of Gaza residents had nothing to do with that election.

To claim that anyone who supports Palestine is doing so to support Islam and Hamas is racist and wrong, and it ignores the abhorrent human rights abuses happening against Palestinians not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and across historic Palestine. To claim that Israel is a democracy is to ignore the century of apartheid and racism (as argued by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others) and the total lack of freedom of speech for Israeli citizens themselves on the issue of Palestine (as evidenced by video footage of Israeli police shoving and hitting Israeli citizens in an anti-Zionist neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem). 

To reduce the past century of occupation, colonization, and violence against Palestinians to a mere "back-and-forth conflict" ignores history, point blank.

Moreover, the labeling of all protestors and supporters of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination as "terrorists" leans heavily on racialized prose in lieu of well-argued claims and feeds into growing anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia in the United States and abroad.  

Of course we should (and do) stand against antisemitism, as well as Islamophobia. But to conflate criticism of the Israeli government's ongoing genocidal campaign with antisemitism is not only dangerous, it is also a disservice to Judaism. 

To imply that every Jewish person endorses the carpet-bombing of a people trapped in what is essentially an open-air detention center causes harm to the very name of Judaism, as we see argued by Jewish activists and Jewish-led protests. To imply that world citizens –– especially those whose governments are complicit in funding an ongoing ethnic cleansing –– cannot criticize a state because it claims to commit this violence in the name of Judaism is manipulative and frightening. 

When we are witnessing a government actively commit “a textbook case of genocide,” as argued by both Holocaust and genocide studies associate professor Raz Segal and now-resigned United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber, media outlets have a responsibility to report the truth, not to post rhetoric (under the guise of "opinion" or otherwise) cheering it on. This is especially true when that government openly states its intent to do so, as with President Isaac Herzog’s comment that “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Everyone who laid eyes on this piece of writing before it went up on the website is complicit in the racist, genocidal rhetoric it promotes.

Even in opinion writing, it is not a journalist’s job to speculate. Goldstein writes: “Iran, an adversary of the US since the 1980s, has been rumored to have supplied Hamas with weapons. While these claims have not been verified, there is evidence supporting the claim as well.” If these claims haven’t been verified –– in a piece where the author accuses Western media of misinformation –– then why include them? Is the author then not perpetuating what he claims to speak against?

While Goldstein wrote this article from the comfort of his desk, 36 journalists or media workers were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, which the Committee to Protect Journalists has called “the deadliest four-week period for journalists covering conflict since CPJ began documenting journalist fatalities in 1992.” The complete disregard for any of their reporting in his article is an insult to the memory of these brave journalists who gave their lives in pursuit of the truth.

Shame on you, The New Political, for encouraging such hateful, racist writing. The world should be able to expect better from a program as strong as the EW Scripps School of Journalism.

Signed,

Abby Jeffers

Bryce Hoehn

Keri Johnson