MarkSilverberg

Britain has become the latest battleground in Israel's fight for existence. Calls for a boycott of Israeli products, the political campaigns demanding divestiture from Israeli companies, the anti-Israel bias of the BBC (despite its own reporter being held captive and forced to make humiliating statements by one of the many armed Palestinian gangs roaming Gaza), and the constant comparisons of Israel to the apartheid regime of South Africa are all indicative of an academic climate in Britain that is either blind to Middle East realities, indifferent to the plight of other threatened Western democracies or apprehensive about its own future amid an increasingly radicalized British Muslim population.

The fundamental principles of journalism require, among other things, that there be independent verification of information, an open mind on any given subject, and no rush to judgement (or to press) until the facts put the issue(s) to rest. Failure to practice the profession in accordance with these accepted principles invariably leads to rumors, false accusations, shoddy reporting and, at worst, propaganda.

You hear it all the time on CNN, FOX and MSNBC – the moral equivalency equation – Palestinian terrorism leads to Israeli retaliation, which leads to more Palestinian terrorism, which leads to more Israeli retaliation. In March, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on both Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat to end this “cycle of violence.” Annan placed the blame equally on both parties. The argument suggests that both sides save to foreswear violence and start talking peace.