The news from the Middle East has been unbearable, and I have avoided writing about it here. There are days when I cannot bring myself even to read the latest reports, much less look at the pictures.
And yet the facts cannot be ignored. They follow us everywhere.
We have received letters about the conflict every week since mid-October. Clearly the violence in Israel and Gaza is generating overwhelming grief and anger among our neighbors, and many people feel compelled to speak out with passionate feeling.
Passionate opinions can make for thought-provoking letters. But expressions of hatred don’t. They just pull us into the cycle of escalating enmity that has shaped the conflict itself.
Journalists all over the world are grappling with awful decisions about what may be shown in news reports and what is too disturbing. Here, letters from readers present a smaller but parallel set of questions about what should be published.
One letter that appeared in the Nov. 9 issue of the weekly Cape Cod Chronicle was particularly upsetting. After describing Hamas as “evil barbarians,” listing their horrible crimes, and portraying Palestinians as opposed to a peaceful resolution, the writer calls for their “extermination” in terms chillingly reminiscent of Nazi rhetoric.
I would not have published that letter.
In our newsroom we have tried to articulate standards for the kinds of statements we will publish about violence. We have allowed writers with differing sympathies to call for a ceasefire and for the release of hostages, to question the rightness of supplying Israel with American weapons that are used to kill civilians, to condemn the treatment by Hamas of its own citizens, and to advocate humanitarian aid. But we will not permit writers to defend the killing of innocent people or to try to justify war crimes.
Not everyone likes these rules. “I thought that the point of letters to the editor was to express personal opinions,” one reader wrote. That is one purpose, I responded, but not all opinions deserve to be published.
Another disgruntled letter writer suggested that I was “a self-hating Jew.” Oy vey.
The most hopeful story I have read about the war in recent days was in Saturday’s New York Times, about Sally Abed, a Palestinian, and Alon-Lee Green, an Israeli, and their organization, Standing Together. They were touring the U.S. to talk about how Palestinians and Israelis can live and work together.
Unlike so many speeches, their presentations to packed auditoriums haven’t resulted in arguments. Instead, they’ve produced relief among audience members, “who audibly exhale or place hands over their hearts,” the Times reported.
Afterward, they’ve been swarmed by people asking what they could do to help the cause of peace and reconciliation.
That story about Standing Together was on page 11. I would have run it on page one.
